


Impossible Possibilities

by Tsuki_Hikaru



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Adventure, Friendship, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2017-12-23 15:41:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/928231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsuki_Hikaru/pseuds/Tsuki_Hikaru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU and Time Travel. Nico generally tries to stay in the shadows. Sure, he tries to gain his father's approval (which he still doesn't really have) but he works best in the background. So when he is kidnapped by some primordial gods that rebelled against Ouranos and the ongoing primordials vs. gods war for a semi-permanent quest, he wonders which one of the Fates he pissed off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Son of Death and the Abyss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since when was Tartarus an entity?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be an AU and Time Travel fic. The Doors of Death were closed but Percy and Annabeth are forever lost to Tartarus and the remaining Heroes plus Nico defeated Gaea, sealed and banished her. But because the gods were preoccupied by Gaea, they didn't notice the other primordial gods rising until it was too late. Ouranos decided to avenge his wife among other things and declared war against the gods and demigods.
> 
> I do not have a beta and my last English mark wasn't all that good, so forgive me if I make any typos. And as for anything that differentiates from canon, well, I did say that it was AU.
> 
> I accept criticism, but please, no flames.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of Rick Riordan's work. (Why would I write here if I was? And Nico would totally be the main character.)

Impossibility 1, The Son of Death and the Abyss

Sometimes, Nico wonder if there was anything he could have done to make better, if he could have somehow stopped Percy and Annabeth from falling to Tartarus and maybe find a better way to close the Doors of Death, a way that didn't leave anyone trapped in the deep abyss or potentially dead. Every night, the possibilities would haunt his nightmares and make him unable to sleep peacefully, but when the first ray of light appeared over the horizon, he'll ruthlessly push it to the deepest part of his mind, secure it with so many layer of securities that even the gods would not have been able to drag it out to the forefront of his consciousness, and lamented the loss of another sleepless night.

After all, with the states things are, even being distracted for one second can be fatal and the son of Hades had no urge to become a permanent inhabitant of his father's realm anytime soon, not that he feared death. As a son of Hades, Nico knows better than almost everyone (the exceptions being of course his father, and other gods somewhat related to death) that death was just a part of life and everyone died, even gods can fade away. No, he wasn't afraid of death, but he would like to help prevent the apocalypse before he died, or at least make his death have some sort of meaning.

But it seems as if what he want doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, because he was staring at death in the face, or more precisely, he was staring at Tartarus. Now, people might wonder Hades Nico di Angelo was thinking, coming to Tartarus, the most horrifying, darkest, and deepest area of his father's realm, when he narrowly escaped death on his previous visit. The now 16-year-old himself agreed that he would have to be insane to even consider revisiting the abyss. Which is why, he wonder why he hadn't yet ran away screaming and sounded the alarm when he entered the Hades' cabin and found Tartarus sitting calmly on his bed. Though he wonders if it really counts when it wasn't actually the deep, dark, terrifying abyss he was face to face to, but instead the primordial god of the Abyss.

Nico took a step back and summoned his sword, Nightmare from the shadows. He might have also summoned two dozens skeletons from the underworld, and a couple hellhounds, and hellfire, but who can blame him, even then he stood no chance against a god, not to mention a primordial god. In addition, he just came back from the battlefield and his bones ached from the strain of fighting hours non stop. The conclusion? His odds aren't looking very good. As if to mock him, the god in front of him appeared unaffected by all of Nico's precautions and instead looked amused. Nico took a few seconds to scrutinize the being in front of him.

He didn't know how he immediately recognized the tall, pale-skinned, dark-haired man as Tartarus, there was nothing to even indicate that he wasn't even human except his eyes, and even then he had to put some effort in seeing through the Mist. The being's eyes were dark and endless. Occasionally, something could be seen moving in the dept, but the raven-haired boy focused to see it clearer, it would disappear and Nico will catch sight of something else to distract him.

"What was that mortal phrase again? Oh right, take a picture, it'll last longer."

Nico reeled back in shock at the deep, silky voice and resisted the urge to blush. By the amused look the god shot him, he wasn't all that successful. It was at times like these that Nico cursed his pale skin; his previous olive skin tone was much easier to hide any color.

"Who are you?" Nico demanded, despite already knowing, because he wanted to deny that the being in front of him was who he thought it was, because it didn't make any sense that out of so many half-blood, he appeared in front of Nico, who despite all his effort was still seen as the weakest of all his father's children, who despite his contributions and sacrifices was still the least liked of all the Big Three children. Even Jason Grace who was Roman and not Greek was liked better here at Camp Half-Blood, because, the campers whispered when they thought he wasn't looking, Nico di Angelo was the one who let Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase fall. And somewhere along the line, it became Nico di Angelo pushed Percy and Annabeth down, because he was jealous and wanted to steal Percy's glory, he caused their death, he killed them. Because even if their death weren't confirmed, they were in Tartarus, part of the realm of the dead, and they were as good as dead. Nico heard them through the shadows loud and clear, after all it was his domain, but he made no move to correct them, since in a way he did kill them. If only he had been faster, if only he had been stronger, if only he hadn't been captured in Tartarus. And no one defended him, because Percy had been his only true friend at CampHalf-Blood and now he was gone gone gone and never to come back.

Tartarus raised an eyebrow and quirked his lips into a half smile, as if aware that Nico knew perfectly who he was, but even if he thought so, he made no move to point it out and instead indulged him with a response.

"So you don't know who I am? I'm hurt," the god placed a hand over his heart and gasped dramatically, "and after we spent so much time together. But," Tartarus straightened and stood up to his full height of 6'2, a full 4 inches taller than Nico's current height of 5'10, "if you want a proper introduction, you just had to say so."

Nico took half a step back when Tartarus made to step forward and then in a surge of anger took a full step forward to stand his ground.

"I'm Tartarus, primordial god of the Abyss, son of Chaos, father of Typhon." He mockingly stretched a half bow. "Pleased to meet you, Nikodemos di Angelo, son of Hades, King of Ghosts, Ambassador of Pluto."

And right there and then, before Nico could react, the summoned creatures were banished, the hellfire was extinguished, the god disappeared, pain exploded in the back of his head, and the last thing he heard before fading into unconsciousness was the voice of Tartarus.

"Nighty night."

* * *

Tartarus caught the boy just before he fell to the ground; after all it wouldn't do any of them any good to have damaged goods. They had big plans for the boy and it wouldn't do for him to break too early, besides, he had grown fond of the boy during the time the son of Hades had spent in his domain.

"Finished?" A voice drawled, "You sure took your sweet time."

"Oh stop your whining," Tartarus replied without turning around, "after all, we literally have all the time in the world. Isn't that right, Chronos?"

The distinctively male voice humphed, "That may be so, but we in no way have infinite patience."

"Fine, fine. Go back to base and I'll follow shortly after you. Then, everything is to be proceeded as planned."

There was a bright flash and Tartarus knew the primordial god of Time had left. He looked back down at the boy in his arms and thought to himself that maybe won't go as planned. He had grown to like the boy and the child could use some extra help. At the end, things might even benefit him greatly.

The primordial god of the Abyss nodded to himself, decisions made, and in another flash, the cabin was once again empty.

* * *

**Chrono is the primordial god of Time while Kronos is the Lord of Titans and the Titan of time and agriculture. They are often confused but they are two different primordial/titan.**

**Please review on your way out.**

**Tsuki Hikaru**


	2. Count To Ten and Take a Deep Breath aka, Hysteria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico wakes up and gets a big surprise. Sure he misses home, but do they miss him? And here, there are so many opportunities...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Yay! My first second chapter.**

Impossibility 2, Count To Ten and Take a Deep Breath aka, Hysteria

Nico groaned and shifted over to turn off the alarm. He blinked blearily and squinted through the darkness, wondering why he had set it so early. The sun have not yet risen and he had a later shift today due to coming back from the battlefield so late yesterday. He frowned when the darkness remained impenetrable to his eyes when it usually only took a moment due to spending large amount of time in the Underworld and shadow travelling.

When his eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, he immediately rolled off if bed to land on his feet, summoning his sword as in afterthought. The sleepiness was all but chased away by the adrenaline. He frowned, in that single movement, something had felt wrong, as if he wasn't in his own body, but the thought was ridiculous and he pushed it out of his mind and tensed. Even when nothing came charging, he refused to lower his guard, because this wasn't his room in the Hades' cabin at CampHalf-Blood, though it did seem somewhat familiar...

The answer eluded him, and just as he was about to remember, the shadows warning him of a presence approaching his door. His frown deepened, even this person's Life Aura seemed familiar, but he shook the thought out of his head and wasted no time walking to the door and positioning himself beside it, in case they decided to charge in. Something was seriously wrong, because he overextended his legs while walking and even Nightmare felt heavier than usual in his hands, and he decided to investigate this later when there was time, because right now, this was more urgent.

A few seconds later, the footsteps stopped in front of the door and a soft knocking sound could be heard. "Nico, you awake yet?"

Nico felt as if a bucket of cold water was poured over him, realizing in that split second where he felt that Life Aura before as well as where he heard that female voice. He looked around the room and sure enough, now that he remembered, he recognized the room as his own from when they were at the Lotus Hotel and Casino. It was a simple one, with a bed, a desk, a chair, a floor length mirror, and a door leading to the bathroom. He remembered specifically asking for it because Bianca was being too suffocating. But that was impossible, they left the hotel a long time ago and his dear sister was dead.

Apparently, the only currently alive demigod son of Hades had hesitated for too long, because the girl on the other side of the door grew impatient and knocked once again, this time harder. "Nico?"

Nico shock his head and decided that it was best to reply since he had no idea what was going on. He drew a shaky breath and replied, "Yes I am, Bianca."

"Good. Hurry up, you have half an hour before I come back to get you. We decided to help the Hotel staff pick the Lotus flowers today, remember?" That said, Bianca could be heard walking away and when the shadows informed that Bianca was no where in the vicinity, he allowed Nightmare to fall before it was caught by shadows and sank down to the ground himself. He accidentally flicked the light switch on his way down and winced as the light burned into his retinas.

He let his head fall back against the wall and sighed. What the Hades happened? He thought back to last night and stiffened in realization. He had forgotten in the adrenaline rush, but when he had arrived back at his cabin last night, there had been someone waiting for him...

He swore; that bastard Tartarus had knocked him out. He sighed, first thing's first. What in Dad's name happened? He wants to believe that this is a dream but a quick pinch eliminated that option. "So the other option is that I travelled back in time, my body does seem shorter and less athletic then before, but that didn't make sense either, because why would a primordial send me, a demigod who is on the Olympian's side to the past where I can change things to an outcome potentially harmful to them?" Nico murmured.

"Yes it does."

Nico startled and hurriedly stood up, turning to face Tartarus, who had just suddenly appeared in past-him's room.

"Hi." The god greeted calmly, as if he didn't just barge into his cabin last night, knock him out, and kidnap him to send Nico to the past. But then again, Nico mused, if this was the past, then yesterday wasn't yesterday and the event that in his perspective happened yesterday hasn't happened yet. So should he hold grudges for what has yet to happen? The answer is yes, he wasn't that nice of a person and he'll eventually let it go, just, not now.

"What are you doing here? And why am I here?" Nico asked, in a reasonably polite tone of voice. After all it wouldn't do to anger the god that so easily knocked him out when he was in his 16-year-old body. Now that he was once again a 10-year-old, he didn't doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of defeating Tartarus, though his demigod abilities doesn't seem to have diminished any, oddly enough.

Tartarus smirked, "What? No charging in recklessly? No threats? That's no fun, you know." Nico had an urged to wipe that smirk off his face and how did Percy put it? Stick him in a meat-flavoured sack and throw him to the wolves? Now he knew what Percy must have felt when they first met. "But in answer to your second question, you're here because we have a quest for you." Tartarus paused dramatically, waiting for the tension to built.

Nico sighed, "Just get on with it, I have no time for theatrics."

Tartarus pouted, "I repeat, you're no fun, Nikodemos."

"Don't call me that."

"Why?" Tartarus questioned, "Isn't that your name? And Nikodemos sounds much more Greek than simply just Nico."

Nico frowned, "I just don't like it, and it's none of your business." he added, when he saw the god once again opening his mouth. "Now, on with the explanation."

"Fine." Tartarus plopped down on the chair beside the desk. "It's going to be a long story so have a seat."

Nico eyed him incredulously, wasn't he the one that's supposed to say that? It is his room after all. "Rude much?" he muttered under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing!" Because even though the guy was an unbearable jerk and unlike any other god he had ever seen, he was still a primordial god, and Nico can't trust him not to smite him if he gets offended, though that might be a bit too late. He made to stride over and sit down on his, but caught sight of his reflection in the floor length mirror and froze.

He figured out that he was in the past and guessed that he was back in his 10-year-old body, but the thought had never actually sank in. Now that he saw himself as a scrawny 10-year-old, he was hit by the full impact of the realisation and it sent him reeling. He was back in the past with Tartarus and it's possible that he might never find his way back. But... does that really matter? He had no friend at either the Greek or Roman camp and the only ones that might miss him are his father and Hazel. Even then, his father wouldn't really care and will probably focus on Hazel and now that the Great Prophecy was over his father can have other children. Hazel might mourn him, but she had all her friends to support and care for her, as well as all her friends at CampJupiter. Sometimes, Nico is envious that she inherited the wealth side of their father's power and was able to make so many friends, but then he'll come back to his senses and bang his head on the wall, because he wouldn't give up his powers for anything. They were a part of him, and those that hate him for it aren't worthy enough to be his friends anyway.

Now that he resolved his inner turmoil, he saw himself better. He tilted his head to get a better look and frowned. It might be that he was used to being pale-skinned with long shaggy slightly past his shoulder and bangs brushing his cheekbones, but he forgot that that wasn't what he looked like when he was ten. When he was ten -or at least the first time, Nico mentally corrected himself- his hair was much shorter and he was olive-skinned. Nico never did get to ask his dad what the deal was with his skin, but he figured that it had something to do with being more connected with the Underworld and his powers. In that case, it makes more sense because he still had full control of his powers, although, he eyed his reflection with a grimace, it might take some work to get back to his full physical ability. All in all, he just looked like his miniaturised older self.

"You still kept many of your old features." Tartarus commented, "You've kept your mind and demigod abilities, so some physical features also followed you back."

When he focused on his eyes, his breath caught and he almost choked. His eyes were silver. He would've understood if it was black, but silver... it was only that color when he actively tried to soul-search and read Life Auras which took a lot of energy, and he doesn't feel a drain. But now that he thought about it, he did sense Bianca approach and that never happened unless the person was on the verge of death. He closed his eyes and focused, reaching his senses outward. He immediately cried out in pain as he felt all the souls in Lotus Hotel and Casino as well as those in Las Vegas assault his brain with an intensity never felt before. He didn't even feel himself fall until a pair of strong arms caught him.

"Whoa! Steady. Now," Tartarus suggested, "let's not do that again until you have better control. I'll explain the eyes later."

Nico felt himself being lifted bridal style and struggled weakly until he was set on his bed. The god pulled out some ambrosia from nowhere and Nico reluctantly accepted. He didn't want to accept anything from the being in front of him; after all, his time in Tartarus, the place, was still in the forefront of his mind and it was also Percy and Annabeth's grave. He knows that Bianca told him not to hold any grudges, but she never had to forgive someone after they as good as tortured her and killed her best friend and his girlfriend. Just this once, he promised himself, the splitting headache made him vulnerable and he had to be on guard and concentrate when faced with this god, hell, any god, so just this once.

* * *

After the ambrosia worked its magic and Nico's headache receded, he sat back up and Tartarus retreated back to his seat to continue his explanation.

"Like I said," Tartarus began, "we, that is, me and a couple of my fellow primordial gods sent you back for a quest that does not involve the destruction of Olympus."

"I don't suppose you can give me any name and the specifics?" Nico asked with an undertone of sarcasm completely missed by the god.

"The names, no, but I can tell you a bit more about the quest. We basically want you to stop Ouranos from taking over Olympus." Nico opened his mouth to interrupt, but Tartarus continued on without stopping, "In the future, the force of Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter are too weakened from the war with Kronos and Gaea. Many demigods were lost, including Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, and Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon." Nico flinched, reminded of his own failure. "Others, like Ethan Nakamura, son of Nemesis, and Luke Castellan, son of Hermes, had they not sided with Kronos, would have been great additions to the war."

"And how do you suppose I should go about in doing that? What is the date anyway?"

Tartarus hummed, "Well, I'm not sure about the date, but we set today to be the day Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, and Grover Underwood arrived at Lotus Hotel and Casino during the Lightning Thief quest. We decided that it was best if you joined them on their quest and help them along, as well as try to stop Luke from leaving Camp Half-Blood and change his mind about joining Kronos. It might help as well if you convince Kronos to stop the coup d'état and join the gods."

"How is that possible? Not the join the quest thing, but the whole convince Kronos to turn over a new leaf thing. And there is no way that I am leaving Bianca behind."

The god shrugged, "How should I know? It's your quest."

Nico's eyebrow twitched and he took a deep breath, "Then do you have a prophecy?"

"Nope." When Nico eyed him incredulously, Tartarus continued, "It's not like we have an Oracle. You'll just have to do your best and wing it. If you want, you can ask one from the Oracle of Delphi when you reach camp. But you'll have to do it sneakily, because no one can know."

"Why me?" Nico asked after a long paused, "Why not Thalia? Why not any of the Heroes of the Prophecy of Seven?"

"That... is not a question that I can answer. Keep asking, and maybe one day I'll tell you."

"So you'll just keep popping in? Should expect any of your other allies?"

"No, it's just me. I'm the only one in this time period."

The son of Hades blinked, "Just you? Then is there a way that you can communicate with the future and go back when we're done?"

"No to both." At that, Nico could swear that he saw some sympathy in Tartarus' eyes, but he must have been hallucinating, because there was no way anyone could read the primordial of the Abyss' eyes even if he was feeling sympathy. But Nico wasn't bothered about the no return concept; he had already figured out that he was pretty much stuck here.

"Then why are you here?"

"Simple, I volunteered to accompany you."

"But why?"

"Because I wanted to."

After some more badgering on Nico's part, Tartarus heaved a sigh and relented, "Let's just say that I have some extra investments in you and leave it at that."

Nico still wasn't satisfied but decided to drop it; it was best not to push his luck.

"Well," Tartarus began and stood up, "It's best if I leave for now. If I remember correctly, your sister is to come and pick you up in five minutes. You can hide your appearance using the Mist, even the normal Mist will work on your sister since she has no idea she's demigod and you're particularly good at Mist manipulation. It might not work for young Perseus and his friends, but they have not yet met you at this point in time so it'll be fine even if they do see through the Mist. As for your sister accompanying you... I repeat what I said before, it's your quest, you can decide. But I would suggest that you don't; she'll only drag you down and besides bossing you around, what has she done for you? She even selfishly died and left you alone. In my opinion, you would be better off without her."

Nico wanted to argue, but instead closed his eyes and when he opened them again, Tartarus was gone.

It was only five minutes later, after he had dressed and disguised himself with the Mist, that he realised he never asked and Tartarus had never explained why his eyes were silver.

* * *

Percy ran around the arcade looking for his friends. He had been running around for ten minutes and was getting more and more frustrated. They were there one moment and then gone the next. If he didn't know better, he would have thought that they were avoiding him. Deciding to check their room, Percy turned sharply against a corner and before he could register that there was a black-haired boy in front of him, he knocked him over and fell on top of him.

He scrambled to get up and muttered an apology before sidestepping the boy, in a hurry to find Annabeth and Grover; who knows how they stayed in the Hotel? Literally every second counts here.

Before he could get very far, he felt someone grab his leg and almost face planted, only catching himself at the last second. He whirled around and opened his mouth, intent on giving the boy a piece of his mind, but the boy spoke before he could get a single syllable out, "That was awfully rude of you, bumping into me and turning to leave without even helping me up. Why are you in such a hurry anyway?"

"I'm looking for my friends. Now let me go." Percy was impatient, but still extended a hand to help the teen up; maybe then he'll let him go.

"Calm down. I might have seen your friends, can you describe them to me?" The boy enquired.

Now that Percy focused on him, he realised that ironically, he can't focus on him. It was as if the boy's feature were blurred and the son of Poseidon's eyes kept involuntarily slipping of him. But that isn't very important at the moment, finding his friends was, and he quickly rattled off some descriptions of Grover and Annabeth.

The boy looked thoughtful for a moment and then nodded, "I know were they are, follow me." The boy turned and walked back the way Percy just came, but instead of turning right towards the arcade, he turned towards the dining hall.

Percy quickly caught up to the boy, and realizing he didn't know his name yet, he quickly introduced himself, hoping for an introduction in return.

His wish was granted when the boy replied, "My name is Nico di Angelo, pleased to meet you, Percy Jackson.

* * *

**And Percy meets Nico.**

**This is not Bianca bashing. I didn't approve of Bianca leaving Nico behind, but I can sort of understand _why_ she did that. Tartarus is just insulting her because he hopes Nico will leave her behind. Tartarus have plans of his own which doesn't involve Bianca.**

**I know that Percy didn't run around looking for Annabeth and Grover and the book, and the Lotus Flowers didn't exist either, but I had to have them meet in some way. This also gave myself a reason as to why they (that is Nico, Bianca, Percy, Annabeth, and Grover) never saw each other in the book. Grover was assigned to Westover Hall and was the one that recognized Nico and Bianca as demigods, so it made no sense that Grover didn't realise they were demigods at the Lotus Hotel unless they siblings weren't in the arcade in the first place.**

**Next chapter we see what happens after Bianca came to pick Nico up and how he knew where Annabeth and Grover are as well as why they weren't in the arcade. Will Bianca accept their explanations about the Greek gods? Will she join the quest along with Nico, or will Nico leave her behind.**

**Please review!**

**Tsuki Hikaru**


	3. The Smallest Change CAN Make the Biggest Difference

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico's side of things, up until Los Angeles, Santa Monica.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From this chapter on, a lot will be similar to the books until the quest is over. So again, I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or Heroes of Olympus. 
> 
> You know what's ironic? I'm currently Los Angeles, just in time to post a chapter where Nico arrives in the same place. Well, maybe not the same place, since I'm at Disneyland and I doubt the lightning bolt is hiden here. I've been dragged around on rides the past few days and for the first time ever, vacation is more trying than school. Ha! Looks like you learn something new everyday.
> 
> Anyway, so here's the third chapter.

Impossibility 3, The Smallest Change CAN Make the Biggest Difference

Nico silently walked behind his sister on the way to the hotel roof, missing Bianca's backward glances. His mind was in a turmoil; he was deciding what to do when he meets Percy later on in the day and how they were going to meet him in the first place. One thing was for sure, they couldn't follow their original schedule or they'll miss Percy and the others completely. There was also the issue of taking Bianca with himself on the quest, because there was no way he won't be accompanying Percy on their quest and to Camp Half-Blood. On one hand, he wouldn't be able to bear leaving Bianca behind after just being reunited with her, but on the other, she would be in much more danger if she accompanied them and this Bianca wasn't yet a hunter. Not that it made much of a difference, he heard a voice that sounded surprisingly like Tartarus', she still died on her first quest. Nico ruthlessly snuffed the voice out but it was true, not that it matters much, because at this rate, he will die on _his_ first quest as well. Leaving Bianca here was a valid option, since at least here she would be safe until Alecto came to bring her to Westover Hall and Dr. Thorn decides to attack her, an attack that would stopped by Percy, Thalia, Annabeth, and Grover, before they were all saved by Lady Artemis.

Speaking, or rather thinking, of Lady Artemis, Nico had long since decided that he'll let Bianca join the Hunters if she wants to, if it'll make her happy. He'll just have to be there to stop her from being killed. Or, he mused, get the Hades Mythomagic figurine before she goes on that quest. But that is in the future and he should focus on the present. After a few more minutes of pondering, he decided to let Bianca pick; if she decides to go with them after the Greek gods are explained or if she wants to stay at the hotel, it will be her choice. As for meeting Percy and the others, he'll simply have to make up an excuse for them to go to the arcade, the place where Percy had told him they played until the son of Poseidon realised what the Lotus Hotel and Casino did. Grover will then sense that they are demigods, especially Bianca, since her power isn't as controlled as his. It's more than likely that Grover will mistake him for a weak demigod but that's perfectly fine, he worked best in the shadows anyway and if he made people wary of him, his actions will be closely observed, therefore limiting his movements.

Decisions made, Nico nodded to himself. He looked back up just in time to avoid colliding with his sister. Bianca had stopped and turned around, her hands on her hips.

"Alright, I've had enough! What's wrong with you?"

"What?" Nico questioned hesitantly.

"You barely spoke at all the whole morning and during lunch; you didn't even mention Mythomagic once! You're usually chatting my ears out by now! Are you sick or something?"

Nico was about to deny the accusation, but stopped as he realized it was a perfect excuse to skip the rest of the day and con Bianca into going to the arcade so he nodded and replied, "I think so. I mean, I've been feeling woozy the whole morning."

"Well why didn't you say so? You go back to the dining hall and I'll go and excuse ourselves for the afternoon. I'll pick you up to go back to your room later." With that said, she turned around, presumably to find one of the staffs. Nico looked at her retreating form, thinking. She might be unbearable at times and doesn't allow him to go long distances by himself, but no one can say that she didn't care about him. Just... not quite enough to stay with him when she was offered the chance for a better life.

He continued on his way to the dining hall, absently checking the arcade for any familiar face, sighing in disappointment when there were none. That was another problem; he didn't know when Percy and the others will arrive, except that it was sometime after noon. He'll just have to keep checking then.

He entered the dining and plopped on a chair at a table for two. 15 minutes later, he began to tap his fingers on the table impatiently; why was Bianca taking so long? It shouldn't have taken her more that 5 minutes. Just as he was about to stand up and go look for Bianca despite her order, his sister walked in... followed by Annabeth and Grover.

Well, Nico raised an eyebrow, that was convenient. He waved at Bianca when she looked his way and she hurried over. Grover and Annabeth made to block her path, with Grover still gesturing frantically. Bianca ignored them and pushed aside.

"Are you alright, Nico? I'm sorry you had to wait so long." Nico dismissed her concerns and asked, "What's with them?" He smirked slightly at the ongoing spectacle.

"I just bumped into them and they won't leave me alone." She complained, "they keep saying some mumbo-jumbo about demigods and some place called Camp Half-blood."

"It's not mumbo-jumbo," Annabeth interrupted, "The Greek gods exists and you-" "Both of you." Grover interrupted, "-are a demigod."

Annabeth blinked, "Both of them?" she questioned.

"Yes. The boy is significantly weaker but he's also a demigod."

Nico let the insult wash over him and echoed his response the first time he learned about being a half-blood, "Cool." He sounded distinctively unenthusiastic, but no one seemed to have noticed because Bianca still denied it as heatedly as before.

"No! This is not cool! Besides, the gods don't exist!"

Thunder rumbled outside hotel and Annabeth rebuked Bianca, "Of course they do. And be careful of what you say."

Nico wondered if he should continue his dialogue and winced at what is to come next; he really did use to be obsessed with Mythomagic, wasn't he? But he has no idea what else to say that won't make Bianca suspicious, and besides, it might be interesting to see if anything she say changes. "Does Zeus really have lightning bolts that do six hundred damage? Does he get extra movement points for—"

"Nico, shut up!" Bianca put her hands to her face. "This is not your stupid Mythomagic game, okay? There are no gods!"

Wow, it seems like that Bianca really is going to keep parroting her older self. It looks like that not witnessing a manticore in action didn't do any significant changes.

The argument continued and Nico tuned it out, after all, he wasn't the one that needed convincing. He absently snapped his fingers to manipulate the Mist, making the mortals hear a mundane conversation about video games. He stood up and muttered an excuse about going to the washroom and left. He needed to go to the wash room, true, but more importantly, he needed to find Percy. If Annabeth and Grover are here, that means that Percy must be as well. He went to the washroom first to mentally prepare himself.

Facing Bianca was hard, yes, but he wasn't really responsible for her death like he was for Percy and Annabeth's. Plus, Bianca died and went to Elysium and was later reincarnated, but the couple was trapped in Tartarus and will most likely continue to be so for the rest of eternity. And Annabeth doesn't really count because he wasn't as close to the daughter of Athena as compared to the son of Poseidon.

Nico exited the public washroom and stopped right before he turned the corner taking a deep breath. He tilted his head as he sensed someone rapidly approaching. He took a moment to lock in on the Life Aura and panicked when he recognized Percy. He wasn't ready! Unexpectedly, Percy turned just as he passed the corner and Nico came face to face with his best and only friend. Frozen in shock, Nico didn't have time to dodge and Percy knocked both of them down.

* * *

Nico eyed Percy from the corner of his eyes as he led him toward the dining hall. His friend still looked the same as ever, with his jet black hair and bright sea green eyes that currently had a hint of impatience in them, mixed with trace of relief, probably from knowing where Annabeth and Grover are. While not as tall as before, he was still tall for a 12-year-old. At that, Nico almost laughed giddily as he realized that Percy was now only 2 years older than him and the same age as Bianca.

"We're here." Nico announced as they entered the dining hall. Percy rushed over to his friends and began informing them of the ability of the hotel. Grover and Annabeth's face grew horrified.

"You mean that years could have passed?!" Annabeth exclaimed, "What if we go out and find ourselves in the middle of World War III? Bianca, what year did you come in?" His sister looked uncomfortable, as she should be, since she didn't have any memory of her life before arriving at Lotus Hotel and Casino. He himself didn't know at this point in time because their memories were washed away by the River Leithe, but the river's effect were weakened on children of Hades, so as he grew stronger and learned more about his mother, pieces of his memories returned, though it was still far from complete.

"We have no memory of life before coming to the hotel." Nico interrupted, keeping up the charade.

Percy leaned over and asked the lady at the next table what year it was. She looked at him weirdly, but answered 1879.

The two campers and one satyr looked at each other and came to a conclusion. Percy was the one who spoke, "Our first priority is to get out of here. It doesn't matter if you don't believe us about the Greek gods, but the current year is 2006. Come with us and we'll show you proof that we really are demigods and that Greek Mythology is real."

Annabeth hissed at Percy, "But they can't come with us, remember our quest?"

"We sure can use some more help on this quest of ours and Grover said that Bianca is a very strong demigod. Besides, I barely received any training myself." Annabeth pursed her lips but accepted what Percy said as the truth.

Nico nodded readily but Bianca still looked hesitant so he gave her a push, "Come on sis, it wouldn't hurt to check, besides we can always come back if they're lying; we're platinum-card members." Bianca sighed, "Alright, we'll go with you."

* * *

On the way out, Nico let the others do the talking, only speaking when he stopped them from eating a Lotus Flower. As they exited the hotel, Percy ran to the nearest newspaper stand to grab a newspaper. Nico watched as shock played over their faces, Bianca because of the year and the others because of the day.

Annabeth was the first one to snap back to her senses and bundled all of them into a taxi. Grover sat in the passenger seat and it was a bit of a squeeze with the four of them in the backseat, but they all fit. The driver wasn't all that pleased with driving all the way to Los Angeles or having more passengers than his car can fit, but he relented and even drove pass the speed limit when Annabeth gave him her green LotusCash card.

On the way, Percy and the others informed them, or more specifically Bianca about their quest.

"So let me get this straight. You're on a quest to retrieve Zeus' lightning bolt and prevent the world from seeing the horrors of a World War III." Three nods answered Nico.

"So will you help us?"

"I suppose that I can help you," Bianca answered with a thoughtful nod, "but Nico's still a child, no way am I letting him go to the Underworld. He'll have to stay in Los Angeles."

Nico would've protested, he lives, or at least lived, in the Underworld and he was much more suited to it than Bianca, nor was it really her job to make his decisions without consulting him first. But in this case, Nico agreed with Bianca, not because he's too young to be in the Underworld, mind you, but because he should put off meeting any of the gods directly for as long as possible; there's no telling what the gods may sense and the Mist doesn't work on them.

"That's fine." Percy agreed.

Percy proceeded to tell them about his dream and the others tried to pin the blame on his father. Percy was the only one who was reluctant, even Bianca seemed convinced that Hades was the culprit, not that she knew the Lord of the Dead was her father. And Nico, well, Nico was trying not to punch their face in for suspecting his father. But he had to admit that it was something that Hades would do given the chance, or at least something that the Hades from this time period would.

When they got off from the taxi at the beach in Santa Monica, Percy looked slightly dazed, staring out at the ocean. He then started walking into the water, not heeding Annabeth's calls. Nico wasn't worried; Percy was after all a son of the Sea God, but he was curious, he had never heard about this part of their quest. Nico sat down and waited while his sister, Annabeth, and Grover panicked.

10 minutes later Percy resurfaced and told them about the pearls. They Percy and the others planned to take a bus into West Hollywood and Nico decided that it was best if he stayed at the beach, it was were the Coast Guards will deposit them, plus there is no way that Bianca will come to any harm in his father's domain. Percy asked the driver where the DOA Recording Studios is and when the driver apologized saying no, Nico had a short internal debate, but ended up telling them the directions.

"How do you know that?" Bianca questioned.

"Um, I saw it on TV." Bianca accepted the answer and they waved goodbye.

* * *

Percy watched Bianca play with Cerberus and frowned. He remembered what the Nereid told him.

_Flashback_

_"...That is why I give you a gift, and a warning, or rather two warnings."_ _She held out her hand. Three white pearls flashed in her palm._

_"Why are there only three pearls?"_

_"Because one of you will not need one, and that goes hand in hand with one of my warnings."_

_"What?"_

_"Do not trust the two strays you have picked up. They are not to be trusted."_

_"..."_

_End of Flashback_

He shook the thought out of his head. The Nereid must have been mistaken, there no way that Bianca or Nico will betray them, they didn't even know they were half-bloods before today, they couldn't betray them even if they wanted to.

But even so, he can't help but remember how Nico knew the studio and how Percy still can't see him clearly, a phenomenon that neither Annabeth of Grover has experienced. They saw him as a boy that looked similar to Bianca and waved his concerns off, though they did admitted that he tend to slip bellow their notice, but that might just be how unnoticeable he is. Last but not least, Charon refused to let them in, even with bribe, until he saw Bianca, then he almost tripped in his haste to get them to the boat.

He pushed it out of his mind, but can't help the hint of suspicion that remains.

* * *

Hades sat on his throne waiting for the little thieves. He will get his helmet back and Poseidon's son will pay. If the little brat refused, well, that's what the hostage's for. There was only one thing he was confused about; he was informed by his Kindly Ones that they were a party of four, three demigods and one satyr, but quest groups are only composed of three and they were three when they left camp, meaning they picked up a third godling somewhere along the way. No matter, one more of those little brats won't make any difference in the long run.

He frowned as he sensed them getting closer to Tartarus. For the Fates' sake, what are they doing? After a few minutes of being at the edge later, they backed off and Hades heaved a sigh of relief. They might be thieves, but he wouldn't wish Tartarus on anyone, the Field of Punishments is enough and even he had some trouble with a few of the punishments dished out there. Besides, they have yet to return his helm of darkness.

As soon as they entered the courtyard, Hades heard their voices and followed along.

 _"The gardens of Persephone, keep walking."_ The girl, like all daughters of Athena, is quite knowledgeable.

 _"You know, I bet Hades doesn't have trouble with door-to-door salesman_." And the satyr is an idiot.

 _"Well, guys, I suppose we should... knock?"_ He'll reserve judgement on Perseus Jackson until he sees him and sent out a hot wind to blow the doors open.

_"I guess that means entrez-vous."_

"You know French, Annabeth?"Hades paused at that last voice; it sounded quite familiar, he just can't quite put where he heard it before. He tried to get a glimpse of the second girl, but she was hiding behind Perseus and the satyr. The one thing he could get off her soul was that it was surprisingly blank, almost like that of a toddler. He would've delved deeper, but he had a show to put on the road.

"You are brave to come here, son of Poseidon, after what you have done to me, very brave indeed. Or perhaps you are simply very foolish."

Perseus stepped forward, "Lord and Uncle, I come with two requests."

Hades felt a flash of anger but pushed it down, instead he raised an eyebrow and leaned forward in his throne. He felt more than saw the souls in his robes react to his anger and try to get out.

"Only two requests? Arrogant child. As if you have not already taken enough. Speak, then. It amuses me not to strike you dead yet."

Hades saw Perseus swallow and glance at Persephone's throne, most likely feeling scared and hoped for his dear wife's help, and felt smug. Unfortunately for him, Persephone was with her mother.

The daughter of Athena, named Annabeth if he remembered correctly, cleared her throat and Perseus came back on track.

"Lord Hades," he said, "look, sir, there can't be a war among the gods. It would be... bad." Hah! As if the Lord of the Dead wanted a war. His realm was already crowded enough.

"Really bad." The satyr added.

"Return Zeus' master bolt to me," the boy continued, as if he didn't already have it; Hades sensed it as soon as he entered the throne room, "please, sir. let me carry it to Olympus."

Hades narrowed his eyes and was sure they have gone bright as well, he had been told that they do that when he's angry. "You dare keep up this pretence, after what you have done?" Despite how angry he was, he tried to keep his mind from being clouded with anger, it wouldn't do either of them any good if he was beyond reasoning.

"Um... Uncle," Perseus said. "You keep saying 'after what you've done.' What exactly have I done?"

Key word, tried.

The throne room shook with a tremor so strong they probably felt in Los Angeles, but Hades didn't care, the only thing that mattered was the little thief in front of him. He mentally sent a command and doors burst open all along the walls, and skeletal warriors from every time period marched in. They then proceeded to line the perimeters of the room, blocking all exits.

"Do you think I _want_ war, godling?" Hades bellowed

"You are the Lord of the Dead," Perseus replied carefully. "A war would expand your kingdom, right?"

"A typical thing for my brothers to say! Do you think I need more subjects? Did you not see the sprawl of the Asphodel Fields?"

"Well..." he was cut off.

"Have you any idea how much my kingdom has swollen in this past century alone, how many subdivisions I've had to open?" Hades ranted

Perseus opened his mouth the reply but Hades was on a roll now and didn't let him interrupt.

"More security ghouls," he moaned. "Traffic problems at the judgment pavilion. Double overtime for the staff. I used to be a rich god, Percy Jackson. I control all the precious metals under the earth. But my expenses!"

"Charon wants a pay raise," Perseus blurted.

Hades eyes darkened, "Don't get me started on Charon!" he yelled, fuming, as if he didn't pay the ferryman enough for the sloppy job he does! "He's been impossible ever since he discovered Italian suits! Problems everywhere, and I've got to handle all of them personally. The commute time alone from the palace to the gates is enough to drive me insane! And the dead just keep arriving. No, godling. I need no help getting subjects! I did not ask for this war."

"But you took Zeus's master bolt."

"Lies!" More rumbling.

"Stop!" the second girl stepped forward.

Hades turned to the speaker, intent on unleashing his full wrath, but as soon as he laid his eyes on her, he froze.

* * *

The trip to the Underworld was very simple; go in, get Zeus' master bolt, and get out. The hard part was trying not to get killed. But as soon as they entered the throne room they have been swallowed by confusion.

Hades kept insisting they did something they didn't (something that they still had no idea what the thing was) and said he didn't want war. Percy didn't have any qualms about disbelieving the Lord of the Dead, but even he had to admit that the reasons Hades listed were pretty valid. Though Percy wasn't focusing completely on the angry god, yes he knows, it was suicidal, but Bianca had started shaking pretty much as soon as they entered the throne room, her nerves finally getting to her.

He let her hide behind him and was prepared to shield her from Hades' wrath and true enough, Hades had started raging. So therefore he was surprised when she suddenly stepped out behind him and shouted at Hades, voice full of anger, probably on his behalf.

Even more surprisingly, Hades, God of the Dead, God of Wealth, Lord of the Underworld and probably a hundred more titles, froze. He froze from the rage of a almighty 12-year-old prepubescent girl. So yeah, Percy was a bit, just a teeny-tiny bit, confused.

* * *

What was his daughter doing here? And where on earth is his son? It has been co many years since he has seen one of his children. He scanned Bianca's soul for where her brother is and relaxed when he saw him at the Santa Monica beach, good he was safe and like Maria said, the Underworld is no place for children. He remembered that their memories were washed away by the River Leithe and realised that Bianca won't recognise him. It was for the best that his children didn't know who their godly parent is, that way they can't be turned against him and CampHalf-Blood won't ostracize them like the Olympians did to him either.

The shock did him some good, seeing as he finally calmed down. He reviewed the previous conversation and absently realised that the children really had no idea what he was talking about. But the lightning bolt really was in Perseus' bag pack, he had to know, unless... He narrowed his eyes.

"Perseus," he addressed the godling, "where did you get that bag pack."

The boy looked baffled at his sudden change of mood and his unusual question, as did his companions including his daughter, but he hesitantly replied, "From Ares, why are you asking?"

He waved his hand and Bianca disappeared. The other three looked outraged but he spoke before they can start making accusations, "Open your bag pack."

Perseus grudgingly obeyed and took a sharp breath as he took out the content and let the bag fall to the ground.

"Percy," the girl began, "how-"

"I-I don't know. I don't understand."

"Ares gave you that bag pack, didn't he?" Hades cut in.

Perseus looked back up and realisation dawned on his face. "Ares! So he's the one behind-"

"I don't think so. Ares may like war, but he doesn't have the brains to pull off something like this. But that isn't the problem right now, returning the master bolt is."

The son of Poseidon had a look of disbelief that he would let them go so easily.

"I'll even let your mother and your friend go on one condition."

Perseus nodded to show he was listening.

"On winter solstice, Zeus' master bolt wasn't the only thing that was stolen, so was my helm of darkness. I have said nothing of the helm's disappearance because I had no illusions that anyone on Olympus would offer me the slightest justice, the slightest help. I can ill afford for word to get out that my most powerful weapon of fear is missing. and so I searched for you myself." Hades paused to take in their expressions, "This is my ultimatum, return my helm back to me after you get the master bolt back to Zeus and I'll let return both your mother and your friend safe and sound, I swear it on the River Styx."

The Athena girl leaned toward young Perseus, presumably to tell him the importance of such an oath.

Perseus had a determined expressions and nodded, "I'll get it back to you, Lord and Uncle." He gave each of his companions a pearl and they each threw one at their feet. A couple moments later, they were each encased in a bubble, flew towards the ceiling, and disappeared.

Hades blinked. Ah, his brothers and his little tricks. They could have left through the front doors and saved the pearls for when they are in a bind since they had his permission. But their way is faster, he suppose, and right now, every second count.

Now, he had a daughter to see.

* * *

Nico sat on the beach, bored. In the past two hours, he had tested out all of his limits with both his demigod powers and physical ability. He found out that all the objects stored in his shadow where still there and that his physical ability was depressingly low, for him. That was one hour ago. Now, he had a pair of reading glasses that translated all literature into Ancient Greek, gifted to him by Hecate, on his face and a huge book on Greek Mythology on his lap. Nico found out that the older a book was the more accurate and more detailed it is. The current book he had was a direct English translation of an ancient Greek book found in a Greek ruin a couple of years in the future. 'Know thy enemy' the saying went. Well, Nico went through a lot of pain to try and know his and he was glad that all his effort didn't go to waste. Plus, all that research material cost a fortune.

The son of Hades saw a Coast Guard boat on the horizon and smirked. He carefully put both his reading glasses and book back to its original spot and stood up, waiting for. He walked toward them as they got off the boat, noting that only Percy, Annabeth, and Grover were present. Bianca wasn't present, probably still in the Underworld and this reinforced his decision to stay away. But the three didn't know that, so put on a concerned expression. As they recounted their tale, Nico was surprised at the difference Bianca's presence alone did. Maybe Tartarus was right and he can do this. But that was something to think about later. Now...

Now they just have to beat up a god, get his father's helm, return Zeus' master bolt to prevent a war, and hand Hades' helm of darkness to Alecto to get back his sister and Aunt Sally. It should be easy.

* * *

**About the Bianca's soul being like toddler thing, well, in my opinion, the memories and experience as well as the personality makes up the soul. So Bianca, who have had all of her memories washed away by the River Leithe, the river used to wash away the memories of the souls that get reincarnated, and has only the memories of the month in the Lotus Hotel and Casino would've have had limited experience and memory, as well as an incomplete personality, and therefore her soul is like a toddler's. Make sense?**

**Both Hades and nico strikes me as very intelligent and rational people. Nico even found a solution to help Percy defeat Kronos when no one else could. So here, Hades got a nasty shock and it was enough to temporarily calm him down and make him think rationally.**

**So far, I've been updating once a week, but I'm naturally a very disorganized person, so don't expect me to keep it up, especially once school starts. I was pretty lucky to finish this before my trip.**

**I'll try to make the chapters longer, but no promises.**

**Please review!**

**Tsuki Hikaru**


	4. The Beginning

**IMPORTANT! DO NOT SKIP!**

**Lightningscar recently updated a chapter that isn't a chapter but a very important announcement. Do any of you know SOPA? In 2012 the Online Privacy Act was brought fourth to congress to be passed, but was rejected then the people fought back, and so was the many attempts at passing it afterwards. Now SOPA is back, and if it passes, everyone that has written on faces federal time. Personally, I am not from the US, and has no idea how this would affect me, but it was important enough to pass it on, and it is better to be safe then sorry. The following passage was copied from Lightningscar:**

**AZFAERYDUST**

**_Alright everyone I had to break it to do you but this is not an official chapter. What this however is an important announcement. Ever heard of SOPA? Well guess what it's back again. Ya, I thought it was dealt with last year as well. Guess I was wrong. Well looks like we get to stomp it down again. Now I'm normally not the type of person to get actively involved with politics or do anything that risks my fanfiction account, but I'd rather risk my fanfiction account then serve federal time. Yep you heard me right, if SOPA passes me and the rest of the writers on here could potentially face federal time. That's not all, if you use any similar concepts to say Harry Potter or any other already published book and post it online, guess what. You could be potentially serving jail time as well. Now if your not screaming what the hell already, then do it now my reader._ **

**_Now the only way I can think of to fight this is to sign a petition, I'll be posting the link at the end of my ranting. Now before you go on thinking oh it's not that big of a deal, imagine this: eight year old children facing federal time just because they wrote a few one shots or a story or two. Yea that's right it doesn't matter what age you are, if this thing passes were all screwed. So join with me my readers, we must stop this outrage. We must remind the government that they are for the people, not just the rich ones! Do not let SOPA pass or it will be the end of FANFICTION. We cannot let this happen!_ **

**_This is the link, simply remove the spaces to go to link. Also I will be posting the link on my profile for further information._ **

**_petitions . whitehouse . gov / petition / stop-sopa -2013 /LMzMVrQF_ **

**_or just go to_ **

**_petitions . whitehouse . gov and then search petitions. Search sopa then click STOP SOPA 2013._ **

**_Remember people the fate of most fanfiction writers lies on you!_ **

**So please help pass on the message and sign the petition. Currently, the number of signatures is 92,108 and we need 7,892 more to reach our goal of 100,000 by September 21. So please take some time to sign it, it takes no longer than a couple of minutes.**

**MESSAGE OVER**

Impossibility 4, The Beginning

Percy was the first one to spot Ares. The God of War was just standing there, waiting for them in his black leather duster and his sunglasses, an aluminum baseball bat propped on his shoulder. How Nico knew that it was aluminum, well, his father was also the God of Wealth.

"Hey kid," Ares addressed Percy, for some reason sounding genuinely pleases to see the son of Poseidon, "You were supposed to die."

That's nice, Nico thought sarcastically.

"You tricked me," Percy said, "you stole the lightning bolt. Actually, no. Tell me, who ordered you to give me the lightning bolt?"

Ares got a twitch in his jaw. For a moment, it was almost as if he were listening to another voice, deep inside his head,"What? Who ordered...what are you talking about?" He snorted."Anyway, it doesn't matter. The point is, kid, you're impeding the war effort. See, you've got to die in the Underworld. Then Old Seaweed will be mad at Hades for killing you. Corpse Breath will have Zeus's master bolt, so Zeus'll be mad at him. And Hades is still looking for this..." From his pocket he took out a ski cap–the kind bank robbers wear–and placed it between the handlebars of his bike. Immediately, the cap transformed into an elaborate bronze war helmet.

"The helm of darkness!" Grover gasped

How dare Ares steal his father's helm! Nico suppressed his anger with difficulty, it wouldn't do any of them any good if he lost his cool. Besides, Ares isn't really acting on his own will anyway, so it wouldn't do to get mad at him, though it wouldn't have taken much convincing for him to agree with Kronos.

Apparently, he unconsciously radiated Fear, because Ares was staring at him and the trio was inching away.

"Who are you?" Ares questioned rudely.

"None of your business." Nico replied in his coldest voice, which was pretty cold if he did say so himself. "Hand over the helm of darkness."

Percy looked at him bewildered, most likely shocked at his sudden change in personality, but agreed with him, "Yes, hand over the helm and no one gets hurt."

Ares laughed, "And how are you going to do that, quirts?" He sneered, "If you forgot, I'm a god and there only three of you puny demigods and one failure of a satyr." He snapped his fingers. The sand exploded at his feet and out charged a wild boar, the largest Nico had ever seen, even larger and uglier than the one that hangs above the door of cabin seven at Camp Half-Blood.

The beast growled and pawed at the sand, making it look even more menacing than before, though after encountering so many monsters and gods, it doesn't even reach one on a scale of 1 to 10.

Nico vaguely heard Percy say, "Fight me yourself, Ares." But he wasn't paying them much attention, it's not like he didn't know how the rest of the conversation will go. Right, the priority was the boar in front of him.

Stare.

Stare.

Stare.

Whimper.

Blink.

"Ah ha!" Nico jumped and punched his fist in the air, "Take that, boar!" Nico focused his Fear at the boar and it fled, leaving a trail of dust and a bewildered Ares.

"But... w-what? How? Come back!" The boar ignored the God of War and didn't even stop.

"Now you can fight Percy, right?" Nico questioned with a huge grin. "Sure, you could just smite him or turn him into a cockroach," The original quest party stared at him with horror, "but that would mean that you are a coward. Or are you?"

Ares' face turned purple with rage, "I am not a coward! Fine, Percy Jackson, I'll fight you, man to man!" Ares roared.

"Don't forget to give back the helm after you lose." Nico called.

Ares sneered, "Jackson has to beat me first and the chance of that is nil to none, in other words, impossible." He swung the baseball bat off his shoulder changing it into a huge, two-handed sword. The hilt was a large silver skull with a ruby in its mouth. Nico scowled, since his father was the Lord of the Dead, the skull was supposed to be his father's symbol.

"What?" Percy whispered, pulling Nico close, "Are you insane?"

Nico raised an eyebrow, "Well you're the one that wanted to fight him, I just help you along. Besides, you'll be fine, I believe in you." Nico patted the son of Poseidon on his back, "Just keep a card up your sleeve."

From the corner of his eyes, Nico saw Annabeth approaching them and pulled away.

She looked uncertain, but straightened up and her face filled with determination. "Wear this," she said, holding out her necklace, with her five years' worth of camp beads and the ring from her father and tied it around Percy's neck, "it's for luck. Reconciliation, Athena and Poseidon together."

"Thanks, Annabeth."

Nico saw a blush begin to creep up Percy's cheeks and mentally cheered. Yay! The beginning of Percabeth! He was totally a Percabeth shipper. His mood turned grim as he realised where the couple is, or rather was. He shook his head and got rid of his gloomy thoughts.

After Grover gave Percy him tin can, the three not fighting backed off and Ares approached.

"You all done saying good-bye?" Ares came toward Percy, his black leather duster trailing behind him, his sword glinting like fire in the sunrise. "I've been fighting for eternity, kid. My strength is unlimited and I cannot die. What have you got?"

Percy said nothing and drew Riptide and at the same time, water raised from the ocean. Nico face planned, didn't he just tell Seaweed brain to keep a card up his sleeve? And he just go ahead and show the God of War all of his trick. Percy seemed to realize this as well, because he sent back a sheepish smile.

Percy slowly backed into the water until he was ankle deep, then he stood and waited for Ares to attacked. Ares accepted the invitation and took the initiative, aiming a blow at Percy's head. With a thought, the water launched the son of Poseidon into the air and over the god. Percy twisted in midair and slashed at Ares as he came down, putting the full weight of his body behind the blow.

But Ares just turned around and his sword came up to block the otherwise devastating blow to the spine, proving that he wasn't called the God of War for nothing. The blow was deflected and Ares followed up with a slash at Percy's midsection. Percy immediately jumped back and barely avoided being cut in half.

"Not bad." Ares commented with a grin.

Unfortunately, in jumping back, Percy put Ares between himself and the sea, and he tried to remedy the situation by dashing pass Ares. But Ares guessed what he was about to do and blocked the son of Poseidon and kept him on the defensive. With the God of War's sword being several feet longer than Riptide, Percy was being driven away further and further from the ocean. Nico frowned, this was not good. He looked around, trying to find a way to help Percy without alerting said person or the one said person was fighting.

While Nico was searching, Percy was sent flying twenty, maybe thirty feet into the air and landed on the soft sand of a dune. A crowd is gathering, the shadows warned him. Nico looked up at the shoreline boulevard and indeed, there was a crowd, there was even a couple of police cars approaching. Nico snapped his fingers, there's nothing to see here, he mentally projected and made the Mist destroy any electronics out. True, he might have gone a bit far, but he can't take any risks. It didn't really matter the first time, but it might this time, and it better to do his best then not do anything and have the consequences come back and bite him in the ass. And besides, he heard from Percy that Ares destroyed the police cars and though no one was killed, quite a few people were hurt the first time when they refused to leave the God of War alone.

Annabeth and Grover had looked at him weirdly as he snapped his fingers , but was soon re-captivated by the fight. By now, Percy had returned to the water and sported a small gash on his forearm. The tide had also stopped Nico heard the flaps of leather wings and looked up, then he cursed softly under his breath. The Furies, it's just getting better and better, isn't it? Nico thought sarcastically.

Percy released the tide and the six feet tall wave crashed down on the God of War. Percy took the chance to stab into the water and apparently hit the god because a roar sounded. The very sea was blasted back from Ares, leaving a wet circle of sand fifty feet wide.

Ichor, the golden blood of the gods, flowed from a gash in the war god's boot. To Nico, the expression on his face was beyond hatred. It was pain, shock, complete disbelief that he'd been wounded. Here was his chance, Nico thought, the god was disoriented and angry enough that he won't notice if Nico did something subtle, and if he kept the shadows close the Ares, the Furies won't be able to see the shadows and the god's angry power would drown out any presence his had.

Nico discretely flicked his wrist and the Ares shadows dragged him down, making him almost move in slow motion and as Ares raised his sword, Nico slightly adjusted the angle of his wrist, making it so that he wouldn't hit anything fatal even if Percy didn't dodge. A smug smirk settle on his face.

It was wiped away the next second as he felt a cold heavy presence wash over him, slowing time around them and washing everything away, even the light faded. The temperature dropped to freezing and Nico felt as if life was useless, everything was useless, including his quest. A moment later, Nico quickly snapped out of it and hastily withdrew his power, hoping that Kronos didn't sense it. What had he been thinking? He knew from Percy that Kronos would interfere somewhere during the fight.

The darkness lifted. Ares looked stunned.

The god slowly lowered his sword. "You have made an enemy, godling," he told Percy. "You have sealed your fate. Every time you raise your blade in battle, every time you hope for success, you will feel my curse. Beware, Perseus Jackson. Beware." His body began to glow and Nico averted his eyes,

"Percy!" He heard Annabeth shout. "Don't watch!"

The light died and Nico looked back. Ares was gone. The tide rolled out to reveal his father's bronze helm of darkness.

Percy picked it up and walked toward them. But before he was halfway there, the Furies swooped down and landed in front of him.

Alecto stepped forward and ran a forked tong over her green, leathery lips. "We were informed of the truth by Lord Hades and we saw the whole thing. We will return the helm to helm."

"What about mom and Bianca." Percy questioned.

"Your mother will be returned to your apartment and the... girl will be brought to Camp Half-Blood." With that, she and her sisters flapped their wings and flew away.

Percy quickly rejoined them, and a quick glance at his side revealed that both Annabeth and Grover were staring at the son of Poseidon in amazement.

"Percy..." Grover said. "That was so incredibly..."

"Terrifying," said Annabeth.

"Cool!" Grover corrected.

Percy obviously didn't feel that way, if anything, he looked tired and uneasy. "Did you guys feel that... whatever it was?"

Nico nodded along with Annabeth and Grover, there was no use denying it.

"Must've been the Furies overhead," Grover said.

But Percy wasn't convince and he threw a glance at Annabeth. Nico saw them share a look of mutual understanding and knew that they had figured it out. It was times like these that Nico thought the title of Seaweed Brain really didn't suit.

Percy reclaimed his backpack from Grover, checking to see if the master bolt was still there.

"We have to get back to New York by tonight." Percy said

"That's impossible," Annabeth countered, "unless we-"

"Fly." Percy agreed. And other times, it really did.

She stared at him and so did Nico. "Fly, like, in an airplane, which you were warned never to do lest Zeus strike you out of the sky, and carrying a weapon that has more destructive power than a nuclear bomb?" Nico agreed with Annabeth, but then again, since they were carrying the master bolt, it might be one of the few times him and Percy are allowed to fly without consequences.

"Yeah," The son of Poseidon said. "Pretty much exactly like that. Come on."

* * *

Unfortunately, before they could get anywhere, they realized that they couldn't actually get anywhere with the police still after them. Here, Nico remembered that the positive effect of having Ares blow up the polices cars. The gods could fix up their memories for sure, but right now... Well, there really only one option left if they want to stop World War III.

Nico took a deep breath, "I can probably get us to New York City without having us arrested."

Percy, Annabeth, and Grover stared at him curiously. "How?" Annabeth asked.

"I was experimenting with my powers while you three were in the Underworld." Nico explained. "I found out that I could shadow-travel." It was not a lie; he did experiment with his demigods powers and he did find out that he could shadow-travel, just not at the same time. But telling them was risky; yes as a son of Hades it was normal that he can shadow-travel, but he shouldn't be able to do it so soon and with so many people. The first time he travelled through shadows, he passed out for a week and the distance was nowhere as far as halfway across the country.

Percy blinked. "Really? Cool. What are we waiting for then?"

"But the downside is that I can only take one person because it tires me out too much." Now that was an outright lie, but it was best to downplay his abilities as much as possible. He knows that his cover is flimsy at best, but it was the best he can do for now, and there is no way he'll let the gods start World War III. A better cover will have to wait until he actually gets some time to rest and plan

The decision was unanimous, Percy was to accompany him to New York City and Annabeth and Grover will follow when they can.

Nico instructed Percy to hold on to him and took a deep breath before letting the shadows swallow them.

* * *

"Lord Hades," Alecto began, "we have brought you your helm back."

"Just leave it here." Hades replied absently. The three Furies exchanged looks but still did as they were told. When the Furies made no move to leave, Hades turned his gazed on them and ordered, "You are dismissed, and do release my brother's lover and Bianca. The same procedure as usual applies to the both of them."

His Kindly Ones seemed shocked that he would erase his own daughter's memories of what happened in his realm, but reluctantly did as told and the doors slammed shut behind them.

After making sure that there is no one near, Hades, supreme ruler of the Underworld sighed and sagged in his throne. He had two types of children; the insane ones, who worshiped him and caused death and destruction, like Hitler, or the rarer, sane ones that hated his guts, either coerced by the other gods or were inclined to do so by themselves. Bianca seems to fit into the second category.

He had been thrilled when both of his demigod children turned out to be sane, and he had hoped that Bianca, his beautiful intelligent daughter, who looked so much like his dear Maria would turn out to be an exception. But she had shunned him like all of his other sane children when he revealed that he was their father.

Hades smiled bitterly and stood up. There was still Nico, of course, but there was no way the boy will amount to anything if his sister already failed. He picked up his helm and made his way to a side door out of the Throne Room.

The halls of his palace was silent; it was summer and Persephone was with his sister. Demeter never did like him, and was probably smothering her and shoving as much cereal as she could down his wife's throat while she was in Olympus. It was summer, and Persephone will be back in a couple of months, maybe then he won't be as lonely.

He snorted, unlikely, after all, all they did these days was argue. About Maria, about everything and nothing. They also argue about his infidelity, never mind the fact that he had the least number of demigod children among all the god and goddesses, not including the virgin goddesses, or the fact that he was the only one out of his brother that have not broken the oath.

And don't get him started about when Demeter visits, the only things that one can hear from miles around the palace is shouting, never mind the fact that the walls are magically enforced to carry no sound.

He sighed once again as he entered his quarters and got his head back on track. Bianca will forget everything from the moment she entered the DOA Studios, including her parentage and it is for the best.

* * *

Percy had to wave his arms around in circles to keep himself from falling face first on the ground. He noted that Nico had no such problem and was instead standing there just smirking at him. He cursed the little squirt in his head.

The son of Poseidon took a look around him and saw that they were in a dark alley. he turned to Nico and said, "Go to camp and tell Chiron what happened." Percy then made his way out of the alley. He stepped out and took a deep breath, it was good to be back home. He paused.

Percy slowly turned back toward Nico, had his arms crossed, and smiled sheepishly, "Um, so where exactly are we?"

"Well," the 10-year-old drawled, "where exactly do you want to go? There's also the fact that I have no idea where this camp of yours is nor do I know who Chiron is." Percy swore that he heard a mumbled 'Seaweed Brain'. Great, just great, even Nico is starting to call him that.

"Olympus is on the 600th floor at the Empire State Building so that's our destination as for camp..." Percy trailed off, "Can't you just shadow travel there?"

"And how am I supposed to do that when I have never been there before? Never mind," Nico dismissed, "just describe to me using details what this camp looks like. And lucky for you, we're just one street over from your destination."

Percy thanked Nico and described to him the Big House, the lake, the obstacle course, the cabins, and as many other places as he can remember. He would have just described to him the inside of the Poseidon cabin, but he doubts that his dad would like that very much. After describing the camp he turned back towards the street and took his first step towards the Empire State Building, hoping with every breath that he'll live to see sunrise.

* * *

Nico actually re-appeared outside the Camp boundaries despite what Percy described to him. He wasn't stupid enough to shadow-travel to the Big House and then be shot by Chiron or killed by Mr. D because he startled them, or ran through with swords if he appeared in the arena, though he's pretty sure he can dodge the last one. The point is, appearing anywhere in the camp is a recipe for disaster, so he came out the other side of Thalia's pine tree. He patted the trunk when he remembered that his cousin was still in there and silently vowed to himself that he'll get her out without Kronos having to poison her.

He slowly walked past the border and approached the nearest camper, who unconsciously drew back even if he was holding in most of his aura and power. Nico mentally frowned, it seems like some things just never change.

"I'll like to see Chiron, please." Nico said politely, he even added a please at the end, but the camper just stuttered and none of his words were audible.

The son of Hades sensed someone approaching from behind him and casually put his right hand into his jacket pocket when he recognized the presence as Luke Castellan. He reached into the shadows and closed his fingers around a small Imperial Gold knife he got from Hazel on his fourteenth birthday. The Greek demigods of this time don't know the existence of the Romans and would not recognize the material it was made from. They will more than likely mistake it for normal gold, and while he might get a few weird looks for having a gold weapon, or even a weapon at all due to his physical age, it will be much easier to deal with than a new demigod showing up with a Stygian Iron or Celestial Bronze knife, especially Stygian Iron.

"Excuse me, but who are you?" Luke's voice called from behind him and he turned around.

"My name is Nico," the black-haired boy began, "And I have a message for Chiron."

"And what is the message about?"

"Classified." Nico said, doing his best not to glare at the son of Hermes, but not making any moves to be friendly either. Tartarus had told him to stop Luke from joining Kronos, but the god didn't say they had to be friends, so he'll leave the befriending to Percy. "At least for now." Nico amended.

Luke gave him a long look, but agreed, "Go back to your camp activities." The blond order the scared camper still standing immobile off to the sides. The camper quickly nodded and almost ran away. Without another word, Nico was led toward the Big House.

As they approached, Nico noted with amusement that Chiron and Mr. D were playing pinochle like they used to before the war with the primordial gods began.

"Yes?" Mr. D asked, irritated.

"Nico here says that he has a message for Chiron." Luke said.

Chiron blinked, "Since you got inside the camp boundaries, I guess we can safely assume that you are a demigod?"

"Yes I am," Nico began, "Percy, Annabeth, and Grover found my sister and I during their quest. Percy was the one that sent me here and asked that I tell what has happened. Speaking of my sister, she should have arrived by now."

A thump was heard, and as the two demigods, one centaur, and one god looked over the edge of the patio, they were met by the form of Bianca di Angelo, blinking blearily up at them, "What happened?" She asked, confused.

Chiron raised an eyebrow, "Well Nico, you better start from the beginning."

* * *

**And Nico reaches camp. Poor Grover and Annabeth were left behind.**

**If you skipped the notice at the beginning, GO BACK AND READ IT, it is detrimental to the continued existence of as well as the well being of all fanfic writers.**

**Please review. My thanks to guest1 and DerangedOtakuFangirl who reviewed for the last chapter.**

**Tsuki Hikaru**


	5. Apollo Has a Panic Attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Nico's first day at past-camp and he has a plan.  
> Luke is completely clueless and Apollo is thoroughly confused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry that this took such a long time. Time just ran away with me. Hopefully, the next update won't take anywhere near as long.
> 
> I've also decided to completely ignore House of Hades. 
> 
> HOUSE OF HADES DOES NOT APPLY! That's all.

Impossibility 5, Apollo Has a Panic Attack

Unfortunately, the story telling took quite a while, and by the time he had informed Chiron of what he knew (excluding what this Percy hadn't told him) and filled Bianca in on what had happened after she entered the Underworld, it was getting quite late. Though the sun has yet to set, Percy had returned from Olympus along with Annabeth and Grover. He had told Chiron that they, Percy and Nico, had travelled the only way they could to arrive before the deadline despite the risk factor. The risk of them (him) being outed as a scion of Hades. Chiron gave him a curious look, but assumed that he meant by plane. The son of Poseidon had proceeded to fill the centaur in on what had happened on Olympus, as well as how Annabeth and Grover were already back.

"Dad summoned them to New York for me," Percy explained, "It saves us money and he said that it was the least he could do for me since I stopped World War III." He continued with his explanation.

"I'm just glad that the prophecy is completed." Grover commented after he finished.

Mr. D who had been ignoring them the whole time snorted, "Well off you go, Peter Johnson and show the newbies where to the Hermes cabin."

They walked in silence until they were no longer within hearing distance of the Big House, then Percy spoke, "How are you, Bianca? Hades didn't harm you, did he?" he asked, worried.

Bianca shook her head, "I'm not hurt, but I don't actually remember anything that had happened after we entered the Underworld. You don't think Hades did anything to me, do you?"

 _Of course not_ , Nico wanted to scream, _you’re his favourite child_. But Percy interrupted him just as the son of Hades, not that anyone knew, was about to speak and it was just as well, "I don't think so," Percy began," I mean, my mom didn't remember anything either, so I think that it's just standard procedure for Hades." He reassured Bianca.

Bianca let out the breath she was holding in and smiled slightly, "Well, I still don't trust him."

"You don't have to, but," Percy replied, his face turning serious, "I don't think that Hades is the biggest problem right now."

"What do you mean? Bla-ha-ha." Grover asked.

"Does that mean that our suspicion is correct?" Annabeth questioned, ignoring Grover. 

"The gods, or at least Zeus, doesn't seem to think so. My dad believes that it was Kronos behind it, but he also thinks that Kronos is just stirring and will not rise from the pit." The son of Poseidon said seriously.

"Whoa, hold on a moment," Grover interrupted, while Bianca looked on in confused. Nico made sure to keep his face carefully blank. "What are you blabbing about? Kronos? That's impossible."

Percy and Annabeth gave them a short summary of their deductions, then Annabeth turned to Percy, "Your dad has a point, Percy, " the daughter of Athena began, "It's possible that Kronos just stirred like he has before and will cause no problem for the gods. Besides, we have no proof that Kronos is actually waking up."

"Well he already caused a ton of problems, didn't he?" Percy replied hotly, "And if someone stirs, it's perfectly plausible for them to wake up. For some reason, I have this feeling that he's already awake. How long did this scheme last? He has been active since the winter solstice, so he has to have been awake for at least half a year. He was also powerful enough to control the God of War during that time."

Annabeth was silent, "Maybe your right," Annabeth finally said. "But you still don't have any proof and can't know for sure. Anyhow, even titans can't escape from Tartarus without outside help."

"I just know it." Percy said, exasperate, "Just call it a gut feeling or something. And,” he continued, “How do you know that he doesn't? Have any outside help, I mean."

"Because Hades would have known!" Annabeth threw her hands up.

"I still don't understand," Bianca began slowly, "Just who is this Kronos person you’re talking about and why is it such a big deal that he might be awake and escape from Tartarus? And while we are at it, who’s Tartarus?"

"Kronos is the King of the Titan and the Titan Lord of Fate, Harvest, Justice, and Time as well as the most powerful child of Gaea and Ouranos, the primordial of the Earth and the Sky respectively." Annabeth explained, "He is also the father of Hades, Demeter, Poseidon, Hestia, Hera, and Zeus. And the Tartarus we mentioned is not a person but the deepest level of the underworld. Even Hades can’t traverse Tartarus."

"And what is a primordial?" 

Percy and Annabeth shared a look. "Look," Percy began, "It'll take way to long to explain the entirety of Greek Mythology. You just have to know that if Kronos rises, he'll try to overthrow the gods and maybe succeed. That would be... bad."

Annabeth snorted, "Way to state the obvious, Seaweed Brain. Point is," she turned to Bianca, "Kronos is not good to our continuous well-being. As for what a primordial is—"

"Primordial gods are the first entities to come into existence," Nico interrupted, not wanting there to be any misinformation about their future and main enemies, "They form the very fabric of existence and like the Titans and Gods, they are immortal. The first primordial is Chaos, the Void, or more specifically, the formless state preceding the creation of the universe or cosmos. It's basically just nothingness. Chaos created Gaea, followed by Tartarus, Eros, Erebos, and Nyx. They are the original primordial gods. There are others as well, like Ouranos the primordial of the Sky, who was created by Gaea and later became her husband, and Ourea and Pontus, the Mountains and the Sea, their children."

The others stared at him and he shrugged, "What? I'm a big fan of Mythomagic, it's only natural that I studied some Greek Mythology." That game is finally good for something. He made a mental note to blame any and all excess knowledge on the game.

"Well anyway," Annabeth was the one who broke the silence, "Your brother is pretty much right, though there is so many version of the story that I am not sure which one is the real one, so I can't guarantee that the details are all correct. But that's the gist of it." 

"I see," Bianca said, looking thoughtful, "The situation certainly does sound serious, but since we can't exactly do anything about it and the gods won't acknowledge it, why don't we just put it out of our minds for now? You guys can show us to, what did Mr. D call it, the Hermes cabin?" she suggested.

Percy sighed, "Fine, but I'm not letting this go," He warned Annabeth, "You and I both know that it was Kronos, and I feel, no, I _know_ that it wasn't just a fluke." That said, he headed towards cabin number 11, the Hermes cabin.

"Well." Grover sighed, "I have to go report to the Council, so I'll see you latter. Bla-ha-ha." He trotted off and Nico and the others hurried up to catch up with Percy.

Nico grimaced when he arrived at the Hermes cabin; he had forgotten how it had looked like before the war with Kronos. It looked really bad, awful, like a Red Cross evacuation center, one that's decades old. The son of Hades really pitied the current occupant of the Hermes cabin. He paused. _Wait a moment, doesn't that include us now?!_ Maybe it'll better to sleep outside, but then again, the forest is dangerous and Hestia is sometimes here at night. Nico sighed, _Choices, choices._

The campers looked up as they entered and a camper Nico didn't recognize asked, "Regular or undetermined?"

"Undetermined." Annabeth replied and was answered by a collective groan, "Cabin 11, meet Bianca and Nico di Angelo. Bianca, Nico, this is cabin 11, in other words the Hermes cabin. You'll be staying here until your godly parent can be determined."

"Why can't we stay in on of the other cabins?" Bianca questioned, "I saw a couple empty ones on the way here. Why do all of the undetermined campers have to stay in a single cabin?"

"That's because Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers, so it's natural that we are the one to take in all the undetermined newcomers." Luke was the one who answered, "My name is Luke Castellan and I am the counsellor of the Hermes cabin, it's nice to meet you Bianca, and Nico, it's nice to see you again." The son of Hermes nodded at him and Nico swore that there was a calculating glint in the blonde's eyes. He can't help but feel that something had changed since he last saw Luke. It was only the fact that Luke had blue and not gold eyes that prevented Nico from gutting him on the spot. Though that might not be such a good idea right now, since Tartarus _did_ tell him to make friends with Kronos, but it's not like it'll kill the titan, so whatever.

"You can put your stuff over there," Luke pointed at a small stretch of floor, "It'll be where you’ll sleep from now." Bianca made to do so but Nico stopped her. He gesture for her to bend down and she looked at him curiously, but complied.

"Hermes is also known as the god of thieves, so it's best not to leave anything within the reach of his children." Nico whispered in his sister's ear. Bianca looked at him and smiled, she whispered back just as softly, "Good to know that that game of yours is good for something." Bianca straightened back up and said out loud, "I'll like to keep my stuff with me if you don't mind."

"Good choice." Percy commented under his breath, unheard by anyone but Nico. The son of Hades realized that Percy was trying to avoid offending the campers. He remembered that this was his cousin’s first summer and has only stayed here for a week or so, of course the physically older (mentally younger) boy wouldn't be very comfortable around them to make his opinion clear.

"We'll let you get acquainted with your new cabin," Annabeth interrupted, "I'll back here to pick you guys up for dinner."

"No need," Luke replied with a smile, "We'll just bring them with us. Like you said, we should get to know each other."

"If you don't mind..." Here the daughter of Athena trailed off and looked at his sister, "Are you okay with this, Bianca?"

"Sure." Bianca agreed cheerfully, "No problem."

"Then we'll see you later." Annabeth turned around and walked back out the door, Percy waved goodbye and followed her.

As soon as the door closed, the inhabitants of Hermes' cabin all went back to what they were doing before, disinterested, leaving only Luke still standing there.

"Well," he said, "How about we get to know each other."

As Bianca began to enthusiastically, if a bit shyly chat with Luke, Nico took the time to study the Hermes cabin counsellor and wonder how he should go about in making him stay. After all, he only had until the end of summer vacation.

“What about you?” Luke asked Nico, causing him to snap out of his thoughts.

“Huh?”

“Do you have any idea who your godly parent is?” The son of Hermes repeated.

Nico wordlessly shook his head, wondering how they came to this topic.

“Of course he doesn’t,” Bianca said, and when Luke shot her a questioning look, she explained, “The two of us lost our memories awhile back, so even if we knew who our godly parent is, we don’t know it anymore.”

“I see,” Luke looked thoughtful, “So you don’t know what your abilities are either?”

Nico hesitated; looking back at it, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to show people his shadow-travelling ability, especially since it wasn’t very common and you actually had to practice the ability to succeed, but… 

“I do know one ability of mine,” Nico replied, taking a gamble, “I know that I can control shadows.” If Luke had already communicated with Kronos, he most likely already knew about his ability to control the shadows. It would also explain the calculating look he shot them.

Bianca blinked owlishly, “Since when? And how?”

He shrugged,” I don’t know? I just can.” 

“Well,” Luke said, “Can you do that as well, Bianca? You should be able to too, since the two of you are siblings.”

His sister shook her head, “I’ve never tried to do it before…” She trailed off and concentrated. Both Nico and Luke looked towards where she was focusing, the shadow of one of the bunk beds.

Bianca’s forehead creased and she concentrated even harder. A tendril of shadow slowly reached out towards them, but then collapsed back into the rest as she lost her concentration. Bianca let out a breath, “Phew. That was hard. But you’re right,” she addressed Luke, “I can control the shadows as well.”

“Nico, can you show me how much you can do?” Luke then asked.

“Sure.” Nico reached out and made a big show of gesturing with his arm, with the shadows following where he pointed. Bianca gaped.

“Amazing,” the son of Hermes murmured, “How can you do so much with the shadows?”

Nico shrugged once again, “I practiced it a lot back in the hotel when I was bored.” Now that he thought about it, why was he afraid of finding out he was a son of Hades? It not like it was a trait of a time traveler or something. It doesn’t really matter as long as they don’t know that _he_ knew he himself was a son of Hades. The only plausible reason was that he didn’t want people to fear him like they did in the future.

He hid a bitter smile—no matter what he did, he would never be able to compare with Bianca. In the future, it often seemed like the only way he could prove himself was to die. And though he is not afraid of death, he would rather not die prematurely or purposelessly.

Luke didn’t ask them any more questions about their abilities and until dinner, they talked about their interests and Luke told them what they could expect at camp. Nico was surprised when Luke revealed that he also used to be an avid player of Mythomagic and with some of the enthusiasm he had never quite been able to get rid of, they engaged in a heated discussion about the game. Bianca just looked on with amusement.

When the sound of a conch shell blowing travelled through the air, Nico and his sister followed the rest of cabin 11 to get something to eat. Nico was in a far better mood than when he first came into the cabin. After all, he finally had an idea on where to begin with the impossible task Tartarus gave him.

* * *

Nico trailed after the rest of the campers and sat at the very edge of a bench with Luke beside him and Bianca sitting in front of him. He looked around him and had to smile slightly. After the war with Gaia officially began, there was no set dinnertime, no Mr. D reluctantly giving some awfully speech, even the offerings to the gods were at a bare minimum.

During war time, food had to be carefully rationed and all the campers were set on rotation and at least a third of the camp was fighting at all times. The gods themselves fought on the battlefields almost fulltime. His father, Hades, often left the running of the Underworld to him.

Nico shivered, just thinking of the mountains and mountains of paperwork he had to do gave him goose bumps. In a rare moment of light-heartedness, Jason had joked that the paperwork will off him before Gaea had as chance to. Nico personally thought that it was very likely.

He watched with the others as Percy, Annabeth and Grover walked to the bonfire, laurel wreaths on their heads and some camper carried Percy and Annabeth’s burial shroud to be burned. Nico had to snicker at Percy’s horrid shroud.

The campers all cheered and Dionysus said, “Yes, yes, so the little brat didn’t get himself killed and now he’ll have an even bigger head. Well, huzah for that.”

Wood nymphs came forward with platters food of every kind and Nico was puzzled at the variety until he remembered that Percy had just completed the first quest in two years. All the campers were occasionally shooting glances at Mr. D, waiting for him to speak.

Nico joined his sister and the rest of the campers to make an offering to the gods. He heard his sister whisper, “To whomever our godly parent is.” Nico followed suite, but also made an offering to Hestia, knowing that the physically young goddess rarely got any offerings. He sat back on the bench and began his meal.

After everyone was finished, Mr. D set down his glass and stood up. Every camper immediately became silent.

“Today, Peter Johnson, Gregory Upperfoot and Annelise Cain came back from their quest. As you can assume from the fact that we aren’t yet preparing for war, the quest was a success.” Nico had to block his ears from the loud noise.

“Yes, yes,” Mr. D said in a very bored voice, “It’s all very exciting, but do quiet down.” The camper slowly calmed down and turned their attention back on Mr. D, “The quest ban that has been in effect for the past two years has now been lifted.” Another cheer broke out, but the god just spoke over them, “In addition, we have two new campers, Rebecca and Nicholas Davis.” Nico raised an eyebrow; Dionysus actually got his name somewhat right. He continued on before Chiron could correct him, “In other announcements, there will be no canoe races this Saturday and the next Capture the Flag is set for next Tuesday.” Then he sat down.

The campers all crowded around Percy, Annabeth and Grover to congratulate them, all except Luke, Nico noted. The son of Hermes was still sitting beside him, calmly eating his dinner. Nico could see from where he was sitting that Annabeth was occasionally shooting glances their way, obviously looking for Luke.

Time passed very quickly. They did all of the usual camp activities and more and soon, Luke patted him on the head—Nico had to stop himself from cutting his hand off—and said he was going to sleep.

Watching as Luke walked back to the cabin, he thought back to his epiphany earlier in the evening; If he wanted Luke to stay, then he should just intrigue him, and by extension Kronos, enough for Kronos to order him to stay.

* * *

Over the next few weeks until the end of summer break, Nico and Bianca joined in on normal camp activities. Nico only did the bare minimum for someone his age, instead, he observed Bianca improve.

In his original timeline, Bianca had to go on a quest after barely any training at all. Now that she had officially begun training, Nico could see her improving in leaps and bounds. He wishfully wondered if she would have survived if she had just gotten some proper training back in his original timeline.

Although he hid his abilities from the rest of the camp, he made sure to purposely slip up in front of Luke. He didn't really show him any of his real abilities, but enough to get the older male curious.

Nico still had all of his demigod abilities, but it soon became apparent when he started sword fighting that physically, he simply wasn't up to his usual standard. All of his hard earned muscles were gone and so was his muscle memory. He often had to sneak out at night to re-learn his sword technique and build up some strength. Luckily, his reflexes, although dulled, were still there and his senses were still as sharp as ever.

It was one of these nightly trips that had him meet his first god in the past. Nico had been sneaking out to train, when he saw the figure of an eight-year-old girl stoking the hearth.

Nico checked that his powers were completely under wraps and that the dark brown contact lenses were in place before approaching to goddess.

“Who are you?” He asked, trying to sound young, “Why aren’t you in bed instead of tending to the hearth?”

Hestia shrugged and replied without turning around, “It’s my job.” She said simply, “What about you?”

“I couldn’t sleep; the Hermes cabin is awfully cramped.” Nico saw her shot him a look of sympathy and internally winced; he had come to detest sympathy, even if it was simply for such a small thing. It means that people were placing themselves above him and while he knew that Hestia, a goddess technically was, he still couldn’t stand it.

“You shouldn’t wander far away.” Hestia warned, “There are dangerous things out at night.”

Knowing that he wouldn’t be able to get anything done with Hestia here at camp anyway, he just nodded and started heading back. As soon as he was out of sight, he breathed a sigh of relief. The meeting had one purpose and one purpose only; to see if a god would be able to sense something odd about him.

While it was risky, it was least so with Hestia. She is obstructive, simply an observer. It is true that Dionysus is also a god, but Nico knew that his sensing abilities were among the weakest of the gods, while Hestia’s is one of the strongest. Dionysus is not the most observant of gods, neither is he the brightest.

The contact lenses were used to hide his unusual silver eyes, as gods could see through the mist. He was glad that he had the foresight to procure some. He bought them with his Lotus card before coming to camp, after leaving Percy. He knew that the mist couldn’t fool the gods, in fact, they see right through it. Luckily, like a clear-sighted mortal, they don’t even notice that it is there; only a god of the Underworld can manipulate and see the mist. Even so, he slowly let his skin tone lighten during the time he stayed at camp. The change was so gradual, that even Bianca didn’t notice. It might have helped that Bianca’s skin had also started to pale, though far from the extent his has.

As he went back to sleep, Nico didn’t miss how Luke was looking at him from under his bedcover.

* * *

As the last day of camp passed and no frantic naiads came running and no bleeding and poisoned Percy lying on a bed in the Big House, Nico considered his plan a success. He had no idea that right at that moment, Apollo was panicking and running around like his pants were on fire. After all, it was not everyday that one of his prophecy was left unfulfilled.

 

_You shall go west, and face the god who has turned._

_You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned._

_~~You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend.~~ _

_And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end._

Pending explanations…

—From Apollo’s Book of Awesome Prophecies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a short chapter. Next one will definitely be longer.
> 
> Tsuki Hikaru


	6. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tartarus is very annoying, Apollo gives a quest, Luke is a spy, and Bianca notices.  
> The big question: Does Nice have a Multi-Personality Disorder?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like my humour, so no complaining about that, but feel free to complain about anything else.

_Cold._

_It's cold..._

_...And empty._

_Who am I?_

_Where am I?_

_Hungry._

_I'm hungry, **so** hungry. _

_Food._

_And light._

_Pretty light._

_I **hate** the light. _

_Must consume._

_Consume._

**_Destroy._ **

**I.**

Now that Nico thought about it, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to sneak out of camp without telling anyone. On the other hand, there isn’t really anyone to whom he could inform of his little unauthorized trip.

The day had started like any other; wake up, eat breakfast and disappear for the day to do some investigating. The camp schedule had always been really lax during the school year with the majority of the campers gone, so almost everyone has their own schedules. Bianca had found friends in many of the girls at camp and had all but forgotten him.

Nico wasn’t hurt, really, he wasn’t. He already knew that Bianca was tired of taking care of him (never mind that technically, she only took care of him for more or less one month). The fact that she had ditched him for the Hunters at first chance was pretty telling. He also knew that Bianca was a girl and he couldn’t truly relate to heron many things, therefore he was glad that she had found some friends her own age. He _had_ tried to follow them around for a day, but couldn’t stand all the giggling that was going on. So he left to do his own thing, which is hopefully getting some new information upon which he can base his next move.

Although it was against camp rules for those residing year-round at camp to leave without having a quest, Nico had never obeyed that rule and he isn’t about to start now. He had broken this rule dozens of times this past month alone and had not had a single problem. But as he stared at the sharp pointy objects being held mere centimeters from his face by half a dozen Roman demigods, he thought that maybe he should have just stayed in bed for the day. Maybe that creepy dream was a sign of things about to go seriously wrong. On second thought, maybe these demigods don’t deserve the title od “serious”. 

“Speak fiend! Where hath thou hidden thy gentle lady. We shall rid her of thy foul presence!” Nico just stared; what is this, the seventeenth century? And why did they think he would capture a girl? Since when did Camp Jupiter take these kinds of quests anyway? Last of all, why do they think that he is a monster. 

…Oh, so that’s why. He mentally whacked Mist on the head and ignored her as she went off pouting. Nico sighed and suddenly gasped, “Behind you!” All of the demigods turned around and Nico took the chance to slip into some shadows. He rolled his eyes, ‘Oldest trick in the book, yet they fall for it every single time. Every. Single. Time. Why have the demigods standards dropped so much?’ He mourned their lost/not yet gained vigilance and skills, ignoring what caused the demigods back home to be so alert.

‘Why are there so many monsters and demigods out in mass, anyway?’ Nico questioned as he waited for the shadows to drop him somewhere safe in Europe—not that he was exactly in danger back there with the Roman demigods. ‘It’s _waaay_ too soon for Kronos to rise, shouldn’t that grandpop of mine still be in Tartarus.’ Nico grimace, ‘Now that just sounds wrong. The place, the place.’ He shook his head to get himself back on track. ‘Grandpop should still be in the Pit, sulking and planning his uprising—not that any of the gods realized the huge threat staring them in the face until Percy made them acknowledge it. Now that I think about it, it’s starting to become a trend. Maybe someone should inform the gods that denial’s not just a river in Egypt. But then again, they are Greek gods, not Egyptian gods, maybe that has something to do with it.’

He exited the shadows somewhere in Greece, having heard news of an Ancient Greek Temple being unearthed just before he came to the past. He would have explored it earlier, but he had to take some precautions first. He absently rubbed his left shoulder, where he had just modified his tattoo.

Demigods back in the future had a tattoo that prevented them from being located by any primordial, like Gaea did during so many of their quests. The tattoo had luckily followed him into to past, but he had to modify it to also block titans and gods on command. Otherwise, things might get a bit tricky. He thanked whatever higher being there is (higher than the gods, and titans, _and_ primordials) that he took the time to study Greek glyphs and symbols during brief reprieves of the war.

‘Let’s see,’ he thought to himself, ‘where did future!dad say that the temple was again? Oh right, if I remembered correctly, it was situated in the Pindus mountain ranch, near Mount Giona.’

Five minutes later, after accidentally shadow-travelling to almost every mountain in Greece other than the one he wanted to go to, he finally arrived at the foot of Mount Giona. Staring at the huge, intimidating mountain, he pondered the pros and cons of shadow-travelling into the mountain. On one hand, it might save him physical exhaustion and time, but on the other hand, he might just die if he randomly shadow travelled onto a mountain where he hadn’t been to before. Like coming out of an overhang and falling many, _many_ meters to his death.

Nico decided on a compromise and nodded to himself; he’ll shadow-travel, but only having already scouted the area. He propped Kokumu against a tree and plopped down on the ground beside it, then he sat cross-legged and unsheathed the sword, laying it across his lap.

His first sword, made of Stygian Iron had long since been broken. Kokumu, a sword forged using both Stygian Iron and a metal named Silver Dream, is a sword that was forged in the likeness of a Japanese katana with the length being closer to that of an o-wakizashi. The blade is the pure black characteristic of Stygian Iron, edged with the silver of Silver Dream. The sword had an ordinary rectangular guard and the hilt was wrapped in dark blue silk, in other words, Kokumu looks exactly like an ordinary sword—as long as he doesn’t draw it from its sheath. Silver Dream is a metal that is said to be able to induce dreams and the metal’s composition, combined with that of the Stygian Iron, gave the katana the name of Kokumu, the Japanese word for Black Dream. The sword is able to strike people and monsters at the innermost of their souls—or at least it should, theoretically.

Many had asked him why he had a Japanese sword forged when he is a Greek demigod, but he usually just glared at them until they left. This caused the campers back at his camp to start a bet: The reason why Nico di Angelo uses a Japanese sword.  He once peeked into the betting pool, and the reasons ranged from him being the reincarnation of a samurai, to him being cursed by a god to be unable to use anything but a katana. The only person he had told the truth to was Percy and the jerk had laughed his ass off once he found out the _true_ reason.

So what if he likes anime? He’s still a teenager even if he is the son of Hades. It’s the anime’s fault for being so addicting. Or Tite Kubo’s fault for making Bleach about Shinigami; couldn’t it have been about gangsters or something?

Nico closed his eyes and concentrated. The Silver Dream’s properties allowed the metal to augment the demigods’ pre-existing ability of dream-walking. It, combined with Nico’s natural abilities as a son of Hades, allowed him to spirit-walk. Meaning he can enter a spiritual form and no one can see him, unless they are someone strongly connected with death, like the Underworld gods.

Another perk of being in a spiritual form is that he isn’t restricted by any of the needs of the living or gravity, meaning he can _fly_ , and Zeus can’t stop him. The god of the sky won’t be able to hit him with his lightning, that is, if the god could see him at all, which he can’t (probably).

Although there are many perks, spirit-walking isn’t completely risk free, since being outside of his body may cause him to forget his physical need, or it may leave him unable to re-enter his body. He also wouldn’t be able to know what is happening to his body unless he felt pain or sense if someone is near his body, which leaves him vulnerable.

Nico felt the by now familiar sensation of leaving his body and opened his eyes. He found himself above the mountain and sighed as he gazed down at it; he should get started. Who knew how long it’ll take him to spot the entrance to the temple?

**II.**

Over an hour later, Nico was _still_ floating around the mountain. He knew that the mountain was hidden, but no one mentioned to him exactly how hidden it was. They just said that some mortals came upon it as they were out hiking, so it’s not like it’s invisible or something… Nico face-palmed (mentally, because he currently has no body) as he realized exactly why he couldn’t find the entrance.

The temple is probably covered with enchantments, meaning that it might actually be invisible. The reason why the mortal hikers were able to stumble upon it is most likely because that the spells eroded away with time. In this case, the easiest way to find the temple would be to…

Nico willed himself to the peak of the mountain and sank down into the stone, making sure to stretch his senses in search of any enchantments and irregularities in the rock. A couple seconds later, he sensed a huge empty space near the east side of mountain. He willed himself there and—

“About time you got here.”

Nico almost gave himself whiplash (never mind the fact that a spirit doesn’t a head, or a neck, or a body at all) as he turned towards the voice, and, lo and behold, saw none other than Tartarus.

The (much) older male clapped his hands together, “Now that we’re all present, let’s get on with the field trip.”

Nico’s right eye twitched; for some reason, the primordial never fails to annoy him. How can a being almost as old as the universe itself be so laid back and laissez-faire? “What are you doing here?” The demi-god questioned.

Tartarus smirked at him, “Have I not mentioned it before? This is an educational field trip to learn about the Beginning.”

“The Beginning?” Nico muttered, “Why is it capitalized? And isn’t it common knowledge? Chaos preceded the creation of the world and from it came forth the Earth, the Sky, the Underworld, the Night, and the Darkness, forming the world as we know it today.”

“Eh, not quite,” Tartarus stated, “That’s not exactly true.”

Nico blinked, “What?”

“Get back into your body and I’ll explain as we walk.” Tartarus pointed behind himself and Nico, for the first time, noticed his own body leaning against the cavern wall with his sword, once again sheathed, lying flat on the ground.

“How…” Nico trailed off and decided not to ask, instead, he did as told and returned to his body. He stood up and stretched a bit, getting rid of the by now familiar feeling of wrongness. He picked up Kokumu and held it loosely yet securely with his right near the top of the sheath. This will leave his left hand available to draw the sword from the sheath at a moment’s notice. The quick draw is also part of what endeared him to Japanese swords.

He surveyed the cavern now that he isn’t completely pre-occupied by other things and frowned, “I heard that the temple wasn’t very large, but this…It can probably fit Camp Half-Blood twice over and looks more like a village than a temple. And what is it with this cavern? It’s not normal.” The entrance was on a higher ground than the rest of the cavern and from there the two could see the entire cavern clearly.

The cavern was huge and full of plant life. Other than where they were standing, at the entrance and the very centre of the cavern, the floor was completely covered with grass. Enough trees and flowers to form a veritable forest littered the cavern. Sunlight streamed through a huge hole directly above them, making it look as if they are in a giant crater instead of a mountain, when Nico is certain that there isn’t any sort of opening to the outside world.

At the very centre of the cavern lay a cluster of majestic, white, stone buildings, looking distinctively Greek. While many of the buildings are certainly grand enough to be passed off as temples, the rings of wooden houses surrounding the cluster leaves no doubt as to what the settlement is.

Tartarus started walking and Nico followed, “The temple that people discovered back in the future is simply the cover, the exterior. While the enchantments hiding the outer temple dissolved, the ones hiding the inner temple was still going strong and the pathway that leads to this cavern was hidden in there, and _those_ enchantments won’t fail in another million year.”

They passed a river that Nico wasn’t previously able to see and he wondered where the water came from. Tartarus continued with his explanation, “This cavern is an oddity even for us primordial, so I can’t exactly tell you how it’s possible nor do I know who or what created it. While it’s easy to bend things to our will temporarily, this,” he waved a hand at the surroundings, “Has been here for billions of years. Such things are impossible even for us. And yes, this used to be a village, but the inhabitants have disappeared many years ago.”

Nico digested the information for a while before asking, “I thought the primordials have been here since the creation of the world, how can you _not_ know who created it? And aren’t you primordials the highest on the food chain?”

Tartarus sighed, “And that, is why we are here; because history is muddled, full of holes, and far from complete.”

The son of Hades eyed the other male, “Don’t tell me that we have an even _stronger_ enemy to fight?”

“Nah, nothing like that, fortunately,” Tartarus dismissed his worries, “But you should at least know why Ouranos, Gaea, and the others are fighting.”

“Fortunately,” Nico echoed, and then he sighed, “Us demi-gods got everything wrong, didn’t we?” Although _that_ wasn’t as surprising; why would Ouranos fight for someone that helped overthrow him and why would Gaea want to overthrow the Olympian gods when she helped them gain the throne. Nico had at the time put it down to them being an _extremely_ dysfunctional family, but it seems like there’s an actual, _valid_ explanation (One thing that people should know is that demigods _really_ their bets and rumours).

“Yup, but don’t worry,” Tartarus patted him on the back, “Neither the gods nor the titans know about this piece of information either.”

“Is it supposed to be reassuring? Because it really isn’t, that actually makes it worse, somehow.” Nico muttered, “How did we manage to fight whilst being completely ignorant?”

“Beats me.” They kept walking, and walking, and walking, “You want to play I Spy? We are going to be walking for a while.”

Nico mentally face-faulted (because actual face-faults only happen in anime).

**III.**

Will Solace looked at his surroundings, confused as to where he was. He had, of course heard of demigod dreams, but the 11 year old had never had one himself.

“ _Hello son of mine,_

_The sun is shining today,_

_How are you doing?_ ”

The blond-haired boy turned around and spotter a young man in his late teens, around seventeen or eighteen years old, with sun-kissed hair, blue eyes, and a bright smile. Then, Will remembered what the teenager said and he cursed himself when the only words to come out of his mouth were, “I really don’t think that’s how haikus are supposed to be used.” He clasped both hands over his mouth and frantically apologized, “I’m so sorry, Lord Apollo, I don’t know what came over me.”

The god, instead of getting angry, smiled wider, “It’s fine, and call me dad, will you? Usually people will tell me how much my poems suck, you’re response’s actually very polite in comparison.”

“Lord A—dad,” Will corrected himself, “Not that I am not happy to see you, because I am, cut what are you doing here?”

Apollo turned serious and said, “I have a quest for you, but you must swear to me that you will tell no one, unless I give you permission.”

Will looked confused, “It is an honour, but why me? I am not a fighter, my archery skills are average compared to my other siblings, my foresight is almost non-existent; only my healing ability is outstanding.”

“What do you think of prophecies?” Apollo abruptly asked, seemingly changing the subject, “And be honest.” He added.

Will hesitated; truthfully, he didn’t think very highly of prophecies. He didn’t like the fact that someone’s life or death can be decided by a few lines of words. Then there is the fact that to him, prophecies are mostly self-fulfilling; if a demigod decided not to go on a quest, then the prophecy is void, isn’t. But the boy really didn’t think that voicing his thoughts in front of the _God of Prophecy_ is a good idea.

“That’s what I thought.” Apollo nodded with satisfaction, “You really should try to keep your thoughts to yourself,” he explained at Will’s startled look, “But for now, I’ll help block your mind; I can’t have anyone knowing about the quest, after all.”

“You’re not angry?” Will asked tentatively. 

The god shook his head, “Of course not, that is why I sought you out in the first place. And you are right; prophecies are tricky things, many of them don’t come true and they are very easy to defy if you actually try. But,” he continued, “While the prophecy as a whole is very easy to break, there are usually one or two lines in it that _will_ come true no matter what.”

“What exactly does this have to do with the quest?” Will was looking more confused and off balance than ever; it’s one thing to have opinions and theories, another to have them confirmed.

“One of those unavoidable predictions was avoided.”

The younger male’s eyes widened, “What?”

“The prophecy for the quest to retrieve Zeus’s lightning bolt went like this:

_You shall go west, and face the god who has turned._

_You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned._

_You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend._

_And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end._ ” Apollo recited, “The third line contained the unbreakable prediction, but it didn’t happen. The reason why I chose you is because there will _not_ be a prophecy for this. You have to find out why it did not happen, who would have been the betrayer, and what the betrayal would have caused. Do you accept?”

“Yes, I do.” Will responded.

“Good. I will contact you every three days for a progress report and if there is an emergency, just say this:

_The god Apollo,_

_Who is the absolute best,_

_I need your help._ ”

“The last line only had four syllables.” Will noted.

“I need your godly help?” Apollo muttered while counting his fingers, “No, that’s 6 syllables. I need your help now. There!” Apollo exclaimed triumphantly, “That’ll do. So it’s:

_The god Apollo,_

_Who is the absolute best,_

_I need you help now._ I wish you luck on your quest. _”_

Then Will woke up in his own bed.

**IV.**

**“Have you found out anything about the boy?”**

“No, my lord. He and his sister have yet to be claimed and the only ability they have shown is the ability to control shadows. But most Underworld god and goddesses have some measure of control over darkness and shadows with only a few exceptions, such as Hecate.”

**“Nothing else?”**

“He often sneaks out at night and during camp activities, but while he is often overlooked, the Hermes cabin will notice if I go missing, so I have not been able to follow him. He doesn’t really talk to other campers; the only person he regularly talks to is Percy Jackson and Bianca di Angelo. That’s all I know about Nico, but his sister is very good at archery; some of the campers think that she might be a daughter of Apollo.

**“I see. Contact me when you have more information.”**

“Sir, if I may ask a question?”

**“What is it?"**  

“Why are you concerning yourself with them? Even if Nico di Angelo does have great mastery of his powers, he and his sister should pose no threat to you.”

**“While it is true, that most Underworld gods have some control over shadows, few can control them well enough to pass such mastery of the darkness on to their children. I can only think of a few of them of the top of my head, Hades and Persephone among them.”**

 “And if they are children of Hades, it means that there are two more prophecy child, one of whom is the same age as Percy Jackson.”

**“Exactly, and if they are children of Persephone, I might be able to use them her and possibly turn Hades over to my side. With Tartarus being situated in the Underworld, it will help greatly if its ruler supports me.”**

“I understood, I will notify you as soon as there is a new development.”

**V.**

“…and then he asked me out.”

“Really?” The two girls asked at the same time.

“Yup.” Bianca giggled.

“Malcolm is pretty handsome and he is also very smart, being a son of Athena. You got a good catch.” Lou Ellen praised.

“What about your brother?” Silena asked, worried.

“What about him?” Bianca looked confused.

“Did you tell him?”

“No, why would I? Besides, it’s none of his business.” Bianca dismissed.

“You don’t think that your own brother should know if you are dating?” The daughter of Aphrodite frowned.

“It’s my own life,” Bianca said, “I can do what I want with it. My life doesn’t belong solely to him. He should learn to stop following me around and be more independent.”

“Um, Bianca,” Lou Ellen began hesitantly, “You do realize that we rarely ever see your brother? In fact, the last time I saw him was three days ago, I don’t even remember seeing him during meal times.”

“Really?" 

“It’s true,” Silena agreed, “Except that for me, the last time I saw him was last week.”

“Oh. Please excuse me for a moment.”

Bianca ran to the Hermes cabin and threw the doors open. She saw a couple campers inside and asked, “Have you seen my brother?”

They shook their head mutely, shocked at her change in personality. “Ask Luke,” one of them got their mouth unglued, “He might know.”

“Where can I find him?” Bianca asked.

“He should be down in the arena teaching some of the younger campers swordplay.”

“Thanks.” Bianca once again ran off, this time to the arena.

As she approached the arena, she heard the sound of clashing metal and slowed her pace; after all, she did not want to run straight into a sword.

“Luke!” She called once she was close enough. The son of Hermes said something to the camper he was sparring with and jogged towards her, sword still in hand.

“What is it, Bianca?” Luke asked.

“Have you seen my brother?” She asked, “I can’t seem to find him.”

Luke gave her a look and said, “No I haven’t.” _You just noticed?_ His eyes seemed to say, “But I’ll help you look for him, this class is just about finished anyway. Just let me go put the practice sword away.” He gestured towards the sword he was holding.”

“Thanks.” Bianca said, grateful that she wouldn’t have to search the camp by herself. She stood there waiting for him come back.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Luke apologized as soon as he came back.

“It’s fine, you didn’t keep me waiting; you were really fast.” Bianca complimented.

“By the way, I have a question.” Luke began, “Does your brother happens have a Multi-Personality Disorder?”

**VI.**

_His body was cut into pieces, but his mind is still intact. A chuckle echoed through the air as he thought his children; oh the surprise that they will feel once he reveals himself. Too bad that they did not listen to the godlings, too bad for them, that is._

_He thought about the young son of Hermes that is helping him; the boy will make an acceptable vessel, but nothing beats his own body. And with a bit of luck and co-operation, he might just be able to get it back._

_‘My children, it seems like history is about to repeat itself; just like how you were my downfall, your children, not me, will be **your** downfall.’_


	7. And the Ball Gets Rolling

Bianca blinked, "Excuse me?"

"Do you know if your brother has a Multi-Personality Disorder?" Luke asked again.

"Of course not." Bianca responded incredulously, "Nico's perfectly normal."

_'Right,'_ Luke thought sarcastically, _'And pigs can fly.'_   "I'm not saying that your brother's not normal," He said out loud, "It's just that sometimes, he's overly chipper, other times, he's extremely serious, and then there's when he acts overly mysterious."

Bianca wilted in front of his eyes and she sat down heavily on one of the stands surrounding the arena, "It seems like everyone in this camp pays more attention to Nico than I did. What a horrible older sister I am; both Lou Ellen and Silena noticed his absence earlier than I did, and now you noticed that my brother's possibly having an identity crisis. I, on the other hand, saw no signs of it."

"I don't think that everyone noticed; it's my job as the counsellor of the Hermes cabin to take care of my campers, and Lou Ellen and Silena are your best friends, so it's natural that they'll pay attention to your younger brother as well. Besides, you were probably overwhelmed with the fact that Greek Mythology is real." Luke consoled, _'Although it is a bit unreal that you didn't notice at all. Plus, I don't think it's an identity crisis that he's having.'_

Bianca's eyes gained a determined glint, "You're right, I was overwhelmed, so now I have to make it up to Nico. Let's go, I want to find him before he gets into any trouble."

"Right." _'Though I doubt that he'll get into anything he can't handle now if he hasn't had any trouble during the past month.'_   Luke mused, _'I wonder when she'll notice that her brother isn't even in camp?'_

The two of them went from cabin to cabin, asking if they've seen Nico. They didn't have much success; apparently, half the campers didn't even know who he was, a quarter didn't know what he looked like, and the last quarter hasn't seen him. Halfway through the search, they were joined by Silena Beauregard, daughter of Aphrodite, Lou Ellen, daughter of Hecate, and Will Solace, son of Apollo.

"By the way, Bianca," Will said, "You were found on the quest for Zeus's lightning bolt, right?"

"That's right." Bianca replied.

"Do you know what happened during the quest?" The 11 year-old asked curiously.

"Well," she began, "Nico and I weren't there for the entire quest, so I don't really know what happened exactly, but Percy did fill me in on the key points. After they left camp…"

Luke mentally thanked the son of Apollo; he wanted to know as well, but he was unsure of how to ask.

"…And then Percy and the others told us that we are demigods. I refused to believe it, but Nico was really excited and kept going on and on about that stupid card game of his, Mythomagic or something."

"So how did they convince you?" Luke asked.

"They didn't, honestly." Bianca said, "However, the hotel we were in, the Lotus Hotel and Casino, apparently warped time somehow. One of the people in the hotel still believed that we were in the 1800's. Percy and the others convinced me to go out of the hotel see the date on a newspaper. I didn't see any harm in it, since we could always go back if the whole thing was a prank. Once I realized that time wasn't normal inside the hotel, it wasn't that much harder to believe in Greek Mythology."

"I see." Luke said contemplatively.

"You know, guys," Silena interrupted, "I'm starting to think that Bianca's little brother isn't inside the camp at all."

"But isn't it against the rules to leave camp?" Bianca asked, confused.

"Um, yeah. However," Lou Ellen smiled sheepishly, "us children of Hecate have figured out a way to get pass the camp borders undetected. We've been going into the nearest town with some of the children of Hermes and getting certain…items."

Luke rolled his eyes, "What she means is that the Hecate and Hermes cabins have been running contraband. All the campers already know, just don't tell anyone else."

"Does Nico know as well?" Bianca questioned.

"Of course." Luke replied, "You haven't been in the cabin much during the day, so you don't know, but the Hermes cabin is our center of operations, our headquarters, so to say."

"Point is," Silena said, "I really don't think that your brother's in the camp right now. But at the same time, I have no idea where he might be."

**I.**

Nico and Tartarus finally arrived at the edge of the cluster of houses. Nico had questioned the older male on why they couldn't have just shadow-traveled, but apparently, all powers are rendered null inside the cavern.

"Didn't you feel something odd when you first passed the enchantments?" Tartarus questioned.

Nico frowned, "Now that you've mention it, I did feel sort of disjointed when I entered the cavern, but it was really faint. I thought that it was simply a side-effect of the enchantments…" he trailed off.

"Meh," Tartarus shrugged, "being in spirit form sort of muted the feeling; they can, theoretically, go everywhere, after all. Anyway, what you felt was the barrier of nothingness, the barrier between realms, as well as the barrier of time." Nico just stared at him blankly. "This," Tartarus gestured to everything around them, "doesn't really _exist_ by your meaning of the word. Time slowed drastically as soon as you, uh, not-stepped inside the cavern. And if the mortals were to tear this mountain down, they wouldn't find anything and the place would still be perfectly intact. How should I put this…" he ran a hand through his hair.

"So this is like Mount Olympus and the Underworld?" Nico asked, unsure as to what the primordial was saying.

"Not quite; it's more like the Labyrinth. I'll try to explain it to you better later, but first, there is something else you need to know." They stopped in front of the largest structure and went inside.

The inside of the temple was, oddly enough, shaped like a globe. Nico somehow found himself standing on thin air. After blinking the sheer whiteness out of his eyes, he realized that he was actually standing on a glass pathway.

Tartarus walked forward towards the middle and Nico carefully followed.

"Right," Nico began, "so you said something about the creation of the Earth not being like what we thought?"

"What do you mean?" Tartaru blinked innocently, "Doesn't everyone know that Chaos preceded the creation of—"

"What? But you said—"

"What I said," Tartarus smirked, "was that _that_ wasn't the beginning of everything. But the Beginning _I_ was talking about was the beginning of our current mess."

For the nth time, Nico felt the urge to bash his head against the wall—or Tartarus's, that would work too, "Couldn't you have said so earlier?" Because there was no way that the primordial didn't know that Nico had mistaken his words; Tartarus had visited him enough times by now to know more or less how his thought process worked.

Tartarus, smug smirk still in place, replied, "But then I would be deprived of my main source of amusement." He snapped his fingers and the surroundings disappeared, or rather, appeared.

Nico found himself in the middle of a battle. "What in Dad's name—?" he spotted Percy out of the corner of his eyes and turned to help his cousin. He wasn't able to take more than two steps before he was suddenly pulled back by his collar.

"Careful." Tartarus warned sharply, "This isn't real; we're still on the glass platform." He slowly let go when Nico made no further move to get away.

"What is this?" Nico asked, "The future?"

"Not the future. The past." Tartarus corrected. Their surroundings flickered through a few more scenes before settling on one of Camp Half-Blood in ruins and the older forms of various half-bloods knew valiantly fighting to protect it.

"But—"

"Remember when I said that the inhabitants of this village disappeared many years ago?" Tartarus asked. Nico nodded, "To be more accurate, they disappeared many cycles ago. No," he said when Nico opened his mouth, "Let me finish first, Nikodemos." he paused, gathering his thoughts, "The Greek gods, titans and primordials are the Powers of this planet; we don't have jurisdiction over anywhere else. And there _are_ other places. Places like Venus and Saturn and other galaxies. Yes," he confirmed at Nico's shocked look, "the gods have you think that outer space was a ruse made up to fool the mortals and they, even the titans, think so too, but it is very much real and not a lie.

"The reason it is thought to be a lie is that _none_ of us immortals can exit the atmosphere. Sometime near the very beginning of the universe, a barrier appeared around Earth and none but the mortals have been able to penetrate it. Then, around twenty-thousand years after its creation, the entire space inside the barrier was wiped clean and the immortals were destroyed along with it." Nico stayed silent.

"Well anyway," Tartarus continued, "That was the first cycle. Afterwards, everything started again; Chaos, Gaea, Me, Ouranos, etc., etc. Since then, there have been around _a quarter of a million_ cycles. _We_ have died over two hundred thousand times. Some last a year or two longer than others, but none have gone past 2015. We have long since figured out that the barrier is anchored to the planet, so Gaea, Ouranos, and the others want to destroy the Earth in order to escape before their impending demise.

"So this," Nico looked around him, "this is a past cycle?" Tartarus nodded, "And you primordial and remember all of the cycles? And this place survived the destruction of the Earth?"

"None of us remembered at first," Tartarus admitted, "but we began having…dreams when we were asleep. The sleep we were put under was a very deep one; it allowed us to connect with a part of ourselves that we haven't known about until then. However, we still can't remember any but the first cycle and select others clearly. You have to understand, Earth is like a cage to us primordials. And to the gods and titans too, I suppose," he added, "Except they have never tasted freedom from the cage. They don't even know that they _are_ in a cage. As for this place, it has survived many, _many_ cycles, and it doesn't look like it's going to stop anytime soon."

Nico started seeing Tartarus in a different light, "Then what about you? Don't you want to escape as well?"

"Although our memory of past cycles is spotty at best and full of Underworld sized holes," Tartarus began, "I do remember helping in many of the past cycles. However, I realized something and Chronos the primordial along with a few others agreed with me. You know that whole wiping clean thing? Yeah, well, us primordials caused that. Us immortals are intrinsically linked with the planet; what we didn't realize was that in destroying the Earth, we're destroying ourselves. We're the ones that are causing the cycles."

**II.**

Half an hour later (but actually very little time has passed), Nico returned to camp, head swimming with all the new information. It made him dizzy, but his chest felt lighter.

" _So what should I do?" Nico asked as they were walking back to the entrance, breaking the silence._

" _Exactly what you have been doing." Tartarus replied, "While I don't like being caged either, I don't feel like doing the same thing over and over and dying again and again even more. Any other questions?"_

_Another silence._

" _What happened to Percy and Annabeth?" Nico asked in a small voice._

_Tartarus blinked at the non sequitur, but then threw him a fond look that Nico completely missed, "I was wondering when you were going to ask that. They are, will be, fine; I sneaked them into Elysium. Don't tell your dad, alright?" he winked at him._

" _How—?" the thought that he was lying briefly crossed Nico's mind, but he dismissed it; Tartarus wouldn't gain anything by lying._

_The primordial smiled, amused, "I might only live in one small part of the it now, but the entire Underworld is my territory, just like how the Earth is Gaea's and the sky is Ouranos's." Nico nodded, understanding._

_Then, he repeated his question from a couple months ago, "Wouldn't Percy be better for this quest?"_

" _Uh, I did use Percy, once." Tartarus winced, "It failed miserably. The boy just walked straight up to the gods and told them everything I just told you. As you can imagine, it was a disaster." Nico could imagine his cousin doing just that, but felt as if that wasn't the only reason. However, he let it go; even half an answer's better than none. He also had one last question._

" _What happened to my eyes?"_

_Tartarus looked at him thoughtfully, "I suppose I can tell you. Why did you chose a katana for a sword? It's very unusual for a Greek demigod."_

" _What does that have to do with my question?" Tartarus threw him a 'just-answer-the-question' look and Nico replied reluctantly, "Because of anime."_

" _Right. Have you told anyone?"_

" _Except you? Well, I also told Percy, but no one else."_

" _When?" Tartarus looked at him expectantly._

" _During one of the lulls in the fighting, of course. Why—wait, "Nico frowned, "but Percy was already in, ah," he gestured awkwardly, "in, uh, the Pit by then. So how is it possible that I remember…" he wacked his head trying to remember any further detail that might help him figure it out._

" _That is one of your memories from a past cycle." Tartarus said, "It's a bit like the water from the River Lethe, and as a child of the Underworld, you're naturally resistant. Combined with the time travel, which dislodges you soul, the barrier between cycles have started to break down. As you probably know, silver symbolizes balance among many other things, the balance of black and white. By themselves, black and white symbolizes beginnings and endings. Together, it signifies reincarnation, the end of a life and the beginning of another. It is also the colour of the clear-sighted."_

_Here, he hesitated slightly, "I've been holding back most of the memories for you, although some inevitably slip through, but if you want, I can slowly let some through."_

" _That's fine, but how are you holding back my memories?" Nico asked suspiciously._

" _It's a primordial thing." Tartarus dismissed, "I'm not reading your mind if that's what's bothering you." Seeing how he couldn't do anything even if the primordial_ was _reading his mind, Nico decided to trust his words and let the subject drop._

" _By the way, use this place to train from now on." Tartarus said, "You can shadow-travel directly to the entrance, and while it'll take a bit of energy, it's nothing that'll burn you out. The camp will get suspicious with your constant disappearances. There's also a library here that I'll like you to look through when you have the time. Be careful, thought. Even if time is slowed, you still age at the normal rate, so don't use it too often." He added, and having arrived at the entrance, disappeared into the shadows._

_Nico, long since used to Tartarus leaving without a word, just rolled his eyes and left through the shadows as well._

Back in the present, Nico smiled slightly at the thought that Percy and Annabeth's fate wasn't as horrible as he had thought. Granted, dying wasn't good either, but at least they were in Elysium and could go for rebirth if they wanted to.

Smile still in place, he exited the forest.

"—time, I have no idea where he might be."

"Hey, guys." Nico said cheerfully, "What's going on?" The five demigods startled.

"Don't _do_ that, Nico!" Bianca exclaimed.

"Don't do what?"

"Don't just appear out of nowhere." Will said.

"Speaking of which," Lou Ellen began, "Just where were you?"

"In the forest." Nico replied, still keeping his cheerful tone, "The cabin was too loud and I wanted to play Mythomagic in peace." He patted his pocket, "Oh, right." He turned to Luke, "I was wondering if you could get me a pack of the new Mythomagic cards."

"Sure thing, kid." Luke agreed, "Same price as usual?" Nico hummed in agreement.

"Alright, Nico." Bianca suddenly said with a determined glint in her eyes, "From now on, I'm going to be a better sister and start paying more attention to you. You can come with me during the day."

'I know that you're trying to be a better sister, Bianca, but that just complicate things even more!' "What?!" Nico looked at her, pretending to be horrified at the very thought, "I don't want to spend the whole day with a bunch of girls!" Nico grimaced.

"Yeah." Will agreed, laughing, "Didn't you hear? Girls have cooties."

"Although Malcolm doesn't seem to care much." Silena pointed out.

Nico pause, "Excuse me?" What does Malcolm have to do with…

"Silena!" Bianca hissed, elbowing her friend sharply.

"Oops."

"Oh." Nico just stared at her. _'Should I pretend to be overprotective?'_   he mused. He probably should, but couldn't help but think of how in the original timeline, Bianca didn't have a chance to date anyone before she died.

"Nico?" Bianca asked tentatively.

"Congratulations!" the son of Hades forced a smile on his face, "I'm happy for you!" _'On the bright side, it's unlikely that she'll ever join the Hunters.'_   That thought put him much more at ease.

His sister relaxed, "You don't mind?"

"Of course not! If you're happy, then it's fine. But if Malcolm ever hurts you…" Nico left the threat hanging.

Luke laughed, "I'll warn him." The group dissolved into nonsensical chatter.

**III.**

Later that day, Nico was approached by Will.

"Are you actually okay?" the son of Apollo said, "I know that it's weird to suddenly have a sibling's dating life sprung on you and—"

Nico cut him off, "I'm fine with Bianca dating; I was just shocked. Like I said, if Bianca's happy with it, then I am as well."

"Um, that's good." Will stood there awkwardly and Nico could sense that he had something else to say. "What happened on the quest for Zeus's lightning bolt?" The blond suddenly blurted out. He smile sheepishly, "I'm sorry, but it's been bothering me for months."

Nico's eyes narrowed imperceptibly; while he and the son of Apollo hadn't been the best of friends, Nico had gotten to know him through numerous hospital visits. It was very unlike Will to pry. He'll listen to anything you're willing to tell him, but unless it was a life and death matter, he didn't ask.

But then, again, it might simply be one of those age differences things; Nico's probably just being too paranoid. Still, it didn't hurt to be careful—you don't know who the information might get back to.

"Well," the black-haired boy began, "I didn't really understand a lot of it, and on top of that, they didn't let me go with them to the Underworld." Nico sulked, "They said I was too young." 'Which is funny because I'm older than all of them, except Grover, and he's a satyr.'

"I see." Will sighed disappointed.

"You can ask Bianca." Nico suggested, knowing that his sister wouldn't be able to tell him anything truly important.

"Right, thanks." For some reason, the son of Hades had a feeling that Will didn't consider that an option, but why? Does he have a crush on Bianca and is afraid of approaching or something? But Nico saw them together earlier. True, there were other people around, but he didn't seem devastated by the news that Bianca is dating Malcolm either.

"We should go back to our cabins." Will advised, "Dinner's going to start soon." He walked away.

Nico watched him thoughtfully; seeing the son of Apollo caused him to remember something. 'Aren't Apollo and Artemis the god and goddess of the sun and the moon respectively? The sun and the moon, which, if I remembered correctly, are outside of the Earth, in outer space.' Well, there's no use pondering over it now—he'll ask Tartarus the next time he saw the primordial.

**IV.**

"Pardon me, praetors, but the recent increase in monsters is _clearly_ abnormal. Something must be done before the situation gets out of hand."

"What situation? An occasional surge of monsters is _very_ normal. Thanks to our records, we know that something like this happens once every decade or so. Although it does not state the reason, it says very clearly that it is nothing to worry about. Our forces are perfectly capable of handling the extra monsters."

"But none of those were accompanied by an increase in power! Or intelligence! Or new kinds of monsters!"

"One particular monster that our patrol encountered was acting positively human! It even offered a distraction!"

"You know that the Fifth Cohort isn't the most… reliable; can we truly trust what they said?"

"Ridiculous! Are you accusing my men of treason?"

"Not treason, but they may be embellishing their tale somewhat. Ever since that unfortunate quest years ago, they have been trying to rise back to their original position. A little… exaggeration isn't that much of a stretch."

"How dare you! That's—"

"That's enough from all of you! We will take no actions for now and go on as usual. _However_ , if that situation has not changed in two weeks, then we will conduct a full investigation."

"Two weeks should be enough for things to calm down if it is the usual surge of monsters. It is only when that time is up that we will take actions."

"You are all dismissed."

**V.**

" _Unfortunately, Camp Jupiter is a lot more ruthless than Camp Half-Blood and is also much swifter to take actions. I have only been able to delay things for two weeks."_

" _That should be sufficient." Two weeks is enough for him to get his body back._

" _Is there anything else I can do for you, my Lord Saturn?"_

" _Get me Jason Grace." The son of Jupiter should be a suitable sacrifice._

" _Your will shall be done."_

_The Roman left and Kronos turned to the other person in the room. "Are you sure that this will work?"_

" _A hundred percent sure." The other person assured._

" _Good, because if it doesn't, then it's on your head."_

**VI.**

_Something disturbed his sleep. What is it?_

_His own power? How odd._

_It seems like he's awake earlier than usual. What should he do? Wake the others? But it seems like one of his kinsmen is already awake; maybe he'll gather some information first. But honestly, why does it have to be_ him _of all people?_

**VII.**

_No one suspected anything at first. A couple of people drop dead from reasons unknown, not that odd. New diseases, bacteria, and viruses were spawning like crazy; it was impossible for medicine to keep up with it all. Besides, all of them were either homeless or someone who wouldn't be missed._

_Then Hades discovered that their souls didn't arrived at the Underworld, but that wasn't so odd either. Many tried to escape judgement, but none succeeded for long. The god of the Underworld, as usual, sent his Furies after them. When they returned unsuccessful, he sent Nico._

_It was only when his son also came back empty handed that the god truly began to worry. "It's like they disappeared off the face of the Earth." Nico informed him._

_By then, the dead count was already climbing exponentially. Soon, even the mortals realized that something was wrong._

_They blamed each other, they blamed their governments, they blamed everyone but themselves. Including the gods._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really should remember to post on Ao3 as well as FF.net...


	8. Claiming

It was a nice autumn morning. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, and all was quiet.

"How dare you break the pact, Hades!" Never mind; looks like there will be another thunderstorm.

Up in Olympus, Apollo stifled another sigh. Due to the foul weather (and temper) these days, his Sun Chariot rarely gets to make an appearance. Why even bother having one if it was only going to be covered up by storm clouds? He could tell that his twin was of the same opinion.

Up in his throne, Zeus continued to roar his accusations at the addressed God of the Underworld.

Said god had a look of complete indifference plastered on his face. There are different ways of dealing with different people, and Hades had long since learned that the best way to deal with his temperamental younger brother is to simply ignore him. He'll stop shouting once he gets tired.

Hades liked to shout and vent as much as everyone else, but he knew when to keep his temper.

Sure enough, Zeus soon ran out of fume, and took a breather to recollect himself. Hades took this time to state some facts. (No, not explain himself, because he has nothing to explain this bunch of imbeciles—with a rare few exceptions.)

"I did not break the part." Hades said calmly.

"You dare deny it?!" Zeus seems to once again found his temper.

Hades, like Apollo before him, stifled a sigh, and silently thought that if gods could get headaches, then the once he has right now will be of epic proportion. Why is it that the King of the Gods always uses excessive volume?

"Poseidon!" Zeus shouted, "Tell him what you told me!"

Now, that's unexpected. Hades knew since setting foot on Olympus that Zeus found out about Bianca and Nico, but not how. He'll never have expected Poseidon to have been the one to tell Zeus. While there is no lost love between the two eldest sons of Kronos, they do get along better than either of them do with Zeus. Besides the Poseidon is known to be soft towards children; he is of the opinion that the sins of the father is not the sins of the children. And with a son of his own, Hades did not think that he'll put Bianca and Nico in danger.

Poseidon sent him an apologetic look and recounted the happenings from and hour ago.

_Early that morning, Zeus called an emergency council._

_None of the Olympians knew what it was about, and as they were debating possibilities, the doors suddenly slammed open and Zeus strode in, exuding anger and practically foaming at the mouth. The Olympians quieted down and waited to see his next action._

_Unexpectedly, instead of going to his throne, he stopped in front of Poseidon, glaring._

_Even more unexpectedly, he didn't immediately start to shout. "I heard something quite surprising this morning." Zeus began semi-pleasantly, but was unable to act completely nonchalant._

'Oh shit.' _Poseidon cursed silently, and wracked his brain for anything he has done that might anger Zeus this badly. The only thing he could think of was Percy, but his younger brother already knew about his son a long time ago._

_"_ _You know my son Jason? Tall, blond, with blue eyes? Yes? Well, he was kidnapped from Camp Jupiter this morning." As they spoke, Zeus gradually changed into his Roman aspect, Jupiter._

_Poseidon processed the information, nodded, then he frowned. "What does this have anything to do with me?" He asked. And is this why he is so angry? But it doesn't really make sense; everyone here knows that Zeus, and therefore Jupiter, doesn't really care about his children. He only views them as trophies. Unless Jupiter cares more about them than they suspected…_

_"_ _Isn't it obvious?" Jupiter asked, "Jason, while young, is one of the strongest demi-gods alive. The only person that might be able to kidnap him without them causing a big enough ruckus wake the whole camp is your son, Percy Jackson."_

_Poseidon stiffened, and as always when Percy is mentioned, became defensive. "How do you even know that Jason was kidnapped? From what you said, no one in Camp Jupiter saw what happened. Maybe he just went out for a walk. Besides, Percy can't have done it; he's back home with his mother—in New York."_

_"_ _Blood was found and there was no body, what else can it be? And there are many ways of transportations. That woman of yours is a simple mortal! She wouldn't noticed even if her son disappeared!" Jupiter could no longer hold back his temper._

_"_ _Sally is clear-sighted! She can see through the Mist!" Poseidon started shouting as well. "Percy doesn't even know about the Romans! He can't possibly have kidnapped your son!"_

_"_ _UNLESS YOU TOLD HIM!" Jupiter roared, chest heaving._

_"_ _What motive do I have!? You suspected Percy of stealing your Lightning Bolt last time, and he was innocent, now you're accusing him again!?"_

_"_ _He's the only one that's strong enough to have done it! Only a child of the Big Three can take down another child of the Big Three that efficiently!"_

_"_ _What about Hades's children?! Bian—" Poseidon cut himself off once he realized what he let slip._

_"_ _What did you just say?" Zeus asked, having reverted back to his Greek form at the mention of their elder brother. When Poseidon remained silent, he added, "That's an order!"_

_Reluctantly and with a silent apology, Poseidon recounted everything he knows about the Lightning Thief quest and everything he put together._

_After Poseidon stopped speaking, there was a moment of shocked silence from all gods and goddesses, then Zeus yelled, "Summon Hades, immediately!"_

"And that's what happened." Poseidon finally finished.

"Are you still denying the fact that you have demi-god _children_?" Zeus asked triumphantly, placing emphasis on the word 'children', as in more than one child.

"I never denied the fact that Bianca and Nico are my children." Hades replied coldly, "I only said that I never broke the pact; you're one that jumped to a conclusion." Before anyone could ask, Hades continued, "Bianca and Nico were born before World War II, before the pact was made. You were the one that killed their mother, remember? Your lightning destroyed an entire hotel, with Maria in it."

"But then they would already be fully grown." Apollo pointed out before Zeus could.

"I placed them in the Lotus Casino for protection after removing their memories using the River Lethe." Hades stated unflinchingly.

Just as the Olympians started nodding in acceptance, Athena spoke. "If you really didn't break the pact, then why not claim your children?" she asked shrewdly.

Hades's lips tightened, his first show of emotion during the entire conversation. _'You know very well why I cannot claim Bianca and Nico. Bitch.'_ As soon as it became known that the two are his children, they will either be ostracized, or they will reject him.

Bianca will most likely be the later; his daughter is already getting along pretty well with the campers. However, Nico can go either way. He is currently somewhat of an outsider at Camp Half-Blood—some campers are friendly to him for Bianca's sake, but none are his friends. Hades does not know what he'll do if both of their children rejected him, however, he's more worried about what will happen if they don't.

A few of the Olympians who are more compassionate towards his half-blood children prepared to speak out against Athena, but before they could, Hades snapped his fingers twice, "Done." He said coolly. Everyone stared at him in shock; in their eyes, it's like he no longer cares about his children.

_'_ _Yes,'_ he thought silently, _'Bianca will be fine. She already denounced me, she'll do it again. And Nico… For some reason, I have a feeling that the boy does not need my protection from something as petty as this.'_ He did not know where this odd confidence in Nico came from.

"As for Jason Grace," Hades steered the conversation back onto the main topic, "My children could not have kidnapped him; they are both staying at Camp Half-Blood year-round. Even if they have somehow—miraculously—escaped from under Chiron and Dionysus's eyes," he nodded towards the mentioned god, "they only found out about their identity as demigods two months ago. It is far from enough for them to defeat Jason, who has trained since he could walk. Nico is only ten years old. If there is nothing else, then I will be taking my leave." He finished curtly and flashed out in typical godly fashion.

**I.**

_"_ _What was the delay? You took a week longer than promised." Irritation coloured his voice._

_"_ _I am very sorry, my Lord. Grace was harder to get alone than I expected."_

_"_ _Luckily for you, you are still one day away from the deadline. Leave Jason Grace on the altar. Make sure to secure him."_

_"_ _Is there anything else I can do, my Lord Saturn."_

_"_ _No, you are dismissed."_

_"_ _And our agreement…?"_

_"_ _I always keep my words."_

_"_ _Thank you, my Lord." His spy left._

_"_ _At what time should we perform the ritual?" He asked the shadow._

_"_ _Tomorrow, midnight."_

_"_ _Very well. Pity that I cannot get one of my godly children; the ritual will be more effective then. I'll have to make do with my grandson instead. What of the Greek side? Have you secured Percy Jackson?"_

_"_ _Don't worry, I'll have one of your grandchildren here in time."_

_"_ _Isn't Jackson currently my_ only _grandchild on the Greek side? Thalia Grace is a tree." He had his suspicions about the di Angelo children, however, that's all they are—suspicions._

_"_ _No, there are two more."_

_"_ _Oh?"_

_"_ _Nico and Bianca di Angelo, the son and daughter of Hades."_

_"_ _So they are indeed Hades's children… One of them would be preferable, then. Their connection to the Underworld will be helpful in escaping Tartarus."_

_"_ _Alright, then. I will be taking my leave."_

**II.**

Tartarus collapsed into the armchair and groaned; it's always tiring pretending to be someone he's not. He stretched his back and glanced at the person sitting on the other couch.

Said person simply raised a white eyebrow and said, "Don't look at me, you brought this upon yourself."

"Still, it is annoying listening to him complain about Tartarus this, Tartarus that without knowing that Tar-freaking-tarus is right there beside him." He exhaled and sank into the couch.

"You've been spending too much time with the mortals." Golden orbs stared at the dark-haired primordial, "Why even bother renting an apartment?"

Tartarus shrugged, "Don't know. Because I wanted to?" He offered, "By the way, old man, how much do you remember of the future?"

Chronos, the aforementioned 'old man', felt his eyebrows twitch in irritation. "Stop calling me that; I look the same age as you." It's not his fault that the mortals often describe him as an old man with long, white beard and hair—although they did get the white hair part right.

Tartarus waved his objection away. "Just answer the question."

"Some of it." Chronos replied, "Time is, after all, my domain—it's only natural to remember the future past, even if not all of it. However, everything I do remember is somewhat muddled." Here, he paused and shot Tartarus a piercing look, "I do hope you know what you are doing, going so far just to make a simple boy trust you. With your personality, you would have just let the two rot in your domain—they did after all choose to stay. If they are trapped for the rest of this cycle, then too bad. You are much too concerned about that Hades boy. And now, the deal with Kronos…"

"I have my reasons."

"And if the boy learns that you sold out his sister?"

Tartarus looked at him oddly. "What makes you think that I'll hand over Bianca di Angelo?"

"Percy Jackson, then, because I don't think you'll give Kronos the di Angelo boy."

"What makes you think," Tartarus rephrased his question, "that I'll hand over any demi-gods, including Jason Grace?"

"You're planning on betraying Kronos, then?" Chronos frowned, "That's a powerful enemy you are making. Even if he's not up to our level and stuck in a pit, he's still very cunning, with a lot of support."

"Why do I have to betray anyone?" Tartarus asked, exasperated.

"Oh, I don't know, "Chronos drawled, "Maybe because you left no other option for yourself?"

"I'm not so sure about that…"

Chronos suddenly looked interested, "Oh? What other choice do you have?"

"Just wait and see." Tartarus replied, smirking, "Just wait and see." He did tell Nico to make Kronos an ally.

**III.**

Nico felt very much like crying.

As he expected, once again spending the day with Bianca bored his mind out. If he had the time to follow around a bunch or girls, then he might as well get some more training in.

They were currently standing in the archery range, and Bianca and her friends were shooting arrow after arrow. Nico isn't an archer, but he's at the very least decent with the bow and arrow—he preferred throwing knifes more. It not have been so bad, except Bianca isn't even allowing him to touch a bow, never mind letting him actually shoot an arrow. She spouted out something about him being too young.

He gazed at Will Solace, also 10 year old and shooting arrows, and felt insanely jealous. (Suddenly, Will felt a cold shiver go down his spine and fumbled with his next shot, almost shooting Chiron.)

Nico _had_ tried to sneak away a couple times, but it's like Bianca suddenly grew eyes in the back of her head. It's not like he can't sneak away if he really wanted to, but with how tightly she's guarding him, sneaking away would arouse more attention than it's worth. Maybe tomorrow he'll throw a temper tantrum refusing to go anywhere? He has no qualms using his current appearance as a weapon.

At that very moment, Nico felt a very familiar aura surrounding himself. He recognized it immediately as his father's godly power. What the…? A quick glance at Bianca enlightened him as to what was going on.

_'_ _Now this is unexpected…'_ Nico never expected Hades to claim them; he never did so officially in the future. _'Maybe because of Bianca?'_ He thought to himself. The slightly bitter undertone surprised even himself.

This could go either way; it could make things easier or harder for him—it all depends on how the campers and Bianca react.

If the campers once again starts to ignore and exclude him, then it would make things easier. If they continue to like Bianca, then all attention would be diverted to her. His older sister is also a better candidate for the Great Prophecy, simply because she is older. By the time he turns sixteen, both his sister and Percy would have already been so for two years, Thalia for three, and Jason for one. Of all the children of the Big Three, Nico is the youngest—it wouldn't surprise him if he wasn't even _considered_ for the Great Prophecy.

This can also cause the campers to pay more attention to him out of suspicion. If the same is applied to Bianca, his sister will start to stick closer to him, leaving Nico with virtually no free time.

To be honest, Nico isn't very worried about Bianca being ostracized; they will re-accept her once they learn that she has rejected Hades—and Nico is sure that she has. Why else would their father erase her memory? What's important is what _he_ should do.

Rejecting Hades won't do. One, that'll cause the campers to accept him (and isn't that an odd thought? Once upon a time, he would have done anything to be accepted). He would be the center of more attention. Two, even though Hades isn't father of the year material, he isn't the worst father (no, that title belongs to some other god). He doesn't deserve to have both of his living children 'hate' him. That'll be another matter if Hazel was alive, but…

Anyway, so the only option is to accept Hades, but act so utterly average and annoying that no one even wants to looks at him. Great. On the bright side, at least he doesn't have to act like he's completely useless; that'll be even more suspicious, since he's a child of the Big Three.

Nico pointed at the floating symbol above Bianca's head. "What's that?" he asked. His question broke the stunned silence and everyone started talking at once. A good portion of the demi-gods living near Long Island were back for the weekends.

"Quiet." Chiron said, and the grim look on his face caused the demi-gods to immediately obey. "Bianca, Nico, if you'll come this way."

"No!" Nico said stubbornly, "Not before you tell us what's going on!" Bianca didn't say anything, but she had a look of agreement on her face.

"It's your father." Annabeth was the one who spoke. "You've both been claimed."

"Well?" Nico demanded, "Who is it?"

Annabeth was reluctant to answer, so Luke spoke in her stead. "Hades." He answered quietly.

As expected, Bianca was completely horrified. "Hades? The Lord of the Underworld?"

"Hades, the Lord of the Underworld, God of the Dead." Luke confirmed.

"It can't be true." Bianca's face was almost as white as Nico, her olive skin-tone looking unnaturally pale.

"That's so cool!" Nico suddenly burst out, "Did you know, in Mythomagic, Hades—"

"Shut up, Nico!" Bianca cut him off, "This isn't funny! Can you see that this isn't a game?"

"So?" Nico retorted, almost bouncing with excitement, "Does this mean that we can raise skeletons and summon spirits? Can I go visit the Underworld and Cerberus? And dad? Am I going to be super strong? Hey, doesn't this mean that Percy's our cousin?"

"STOP!" Bianca shouted at the top of her lungs, "Don't you know that Hades is a bad person—god?" She corrected herself.

"How do you know?" Nico asked stubbornly, "You don't remember meeting him. You fainted and lost your memory." He felt sorry for his sister, but this is something that he has to do.

Bianca's previously pale skin flushed bright red. "I did not faint! More importantly, he almost started a war!"

"Started a war?" Nico repeated in a worried tone, "Bianca, are you sure you're alright? Are you still having trouble remembering things? That was Ares, remember?" Off to the sides, Chiron and the campers were watching them go back and forth like a ping-pong ball. Luke also looked subtly impressed; Annabeth, however, was frowning.

Bianca looked like she was running out of things to say. "He kidnapped Percy's mom!"

"At least he didn't kill her." Nico pointed out, "He very well could have. Many gods and goddesses have done much worse. And he gave Mrs. Jackson back as promised, didn't he? I wonder if he'll read me bedside stories." Nico mused out, causing many campers to choke. Hades? Reading bedtime stories?

"If he's such a good father like you say, then where was he when we needed him?" Bianca asked desperately.

Nico paused. "At least we are still well and alive." He said softly. Many other demi-gods couldn't say the same.

"I still can't accept him as my father." Bianca said stubbornly. Nico briefly thought that instead of holding grudges, stubbornness should the children of Hades's fatal flaw. Oh well, he had never intended on changing her mind in the first place. He has already achieved his goal with this argument.

"So?" Nico turned back towards Chiron, regaining most of previous his excitement, "When can I visit dad? Is there parents visiting day?"

Chiron shook his head half in amusement, half in exasperation. "I am afraid that it isn't possible." Nico looked so disappointed it was almost comical. "Please come this way." He said once again and gestured towards the Big House. This time, the two children of Hades followed, while behind them, the campers broke out in loud whispers.

Nico wouldn't know until many years later that that argument was what sparked the campers'—and consequently the gods'—acceptance of Hades and his descendants.

**IV.**

As Nico expected, the camper's attitude towards Bianca stayed mostly the same. Except for a few 'Hades-haters', most the camp retained their friendly attitude towards his sister. What did surprise him, however, was that the campers' attitude towards him stayed mostly the same as well. Somewhat more distant, but still neutral and not outright hostile as he had half expected.

He wondered about the difference. Why are the demi-gods so accepting (relatively) of Hades's children. He did not know the answer. Of course, no one told him that he was the first to actively argue for Hades. Before, the demi-gods that stood with Hades just each did their own things, no one ever tried to stand up for the Lord of the Dead. Compared to their cousins, the children of Hades are much more likely to be lone wolves.

However, Nico didn't have time to wonder for long, because the very next day, while he was lying in his sleeping bag, a wisp of shadow informed him that Tartarus wants to see him—and to bring Luke Castellan as well. He was shocked by the request, but Nico decided to trust that the primordial knows what he is doing.

After receiving the location, Nico made sure that Bianca is asleep and got up. He tip-toed towards Luke's bed and pondered his option. He could shake him awake quietly, lead him out of the camp boundaries, and shadow-travel them to Tartarus's location, however…

Nico lightly touched Luke's neck—shadow-travel's always easier with bare skin—and the next second, they were gone.

**V.**

Luke woke up when he harshly impacted a wooden floor.

At first, he simply thought that he rolled off his bed, but… one, it was too bright, and two, he should have fallen on someone else (yes, the Hermes cabin is _that_ crowded), not the floor. That's when he realized something was wrong and quickly sprung to his feet in a defensive stance. Unfortunately, he didn't have a weapon with him—not every godly parent is as generous as Poseidon is; not every demi-god has a Riptide.

He carefully took in his surroundings and was taken aback when he realized he was in a normal apartment, in a normal living room. Then he saw Nico di Angelo sitting casually on the couch—not so normal, then.

"Where am I, di Angelo? Why have you brought me here?" He hissed, completely forgetting his friendly Hermes cabin counselor cover and acted more threatening than most thought him capable of. To be fair, if Nico boldly brought him here (and how exactly did he not wake up on the journey? Was he drugged?), then he probably already knew Luke's position as Kronos's spy.

Nico shot him a completely unimpressed look and replied. "No idea and no idea. Ask him." He gestured to someone behind Luke.

"Hello, Luke Castellan," Luke quickly spun around and backed away a few steps, "It's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance." Tartarus said.

(Behind Luke, Nico rolled his eyes, making no effort to conceal the movements. Why do all immortals need to have a flair for the dramatics? Can't they just introduce themselves like normal people?

Tartarus knew what he was thinking, and inwardly retorted, ' _Look who's talking'_.)


End file.
